这本畅销教科书是一本清晰且最新的语言学入门书,涵盖了语言的方方面面,从传统的结构语言学主题(涉及声音、形式、意义和语言变化)到更专业的语境语言学主题(包括话语、方言变异、语言和文化以及语言政治)。还有关于语言和大脑、计算语言学、写作以及第一和第二语言学习的单独章节。经过广泛的课堂测试,第二版进行了修订,以进一步支持学生的学习,其中包含大量新示例、练习和文本框来模拟和语境化关键概念。通篇更新以纳入当代问题和事件,其中包括音系分析的实例和各种世界英语的多个示例。丰富的在线资源集合完善了学习包。
A clear and up-to-date introduction to linguistics, this bestselling textbook addresses the full scope of language, from the traditional subjects of structural linguistics (relating to sound, form, meaning, and language change) to the more specialized subjects of contextual linguistics (including discourse, dialect variation, language and culture, and the politics of language). There are also separate chapters on language and the brain, computational linguistics, writing, and first and second language learning. Extensively classroom-tested, this second edition has been revised to further support student learning, with numerous new examples, exercises, and textboxes to model and contextualize key concepts. Updated throughout to incorporate contemporary issues and events, it includes worked examples of phonological analyses and multiple examples of a variety of World Englishes. A rich collection of online resources completes the learning package.
拉尔夫·法索尔德是乔治城大学名誉教授,曾任语言学系主任。他著有四本书,并担任六本书的编辑或合编。其中包括教科书《社会社会语言学》(1984 年)和《语言社会语言学》(1990 年)。
RALPH FASOLD is Professor Emeritus and past Chair of the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University. He is the author of four books and editor or coeditor of six others. Among them are the textbooks The Sociolinguistics of Society (1984) and The Sociolinguistics of Language (1990).
杰夫·康纳-林顿是乔治城大学语言学系副教授,曾任应用语言学项目主任和系主任。他曾任美国应用语言学协会主席。他曾指导过一门多部分的语言学入门课程,并负责指导语言学系研究生的教学培训。
JEFF CONNOR-LINTON is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, where he has been Head of the Applied Linguistics Program and Department Chair. He is a Past President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. He has supervised a multi-section introductory linguistics course and supervises the pedagogical training of graduate students in the Linguistics Department.
编辑们衷心感谢 Zhaleh Feizollahi,她帮助修订了大部分章节,并添加了许多新的文本框和其他内容。她曾在多所大学教授第一版的语言学入门课程,并运用这些经验使第二版更加通俗易懂、引人入胜。
The editors sincerely thank Zhaleh Feizollahi, who helped in the revision of most chapters and added many new textboxes and other content. She taught introductory linguistics courses with the first edition at several universities and applied that experience to make the second edition even more accessible and engaging.
感谢 Donna Lardiere、Alison Mackey 和 Gigliana Melzi 对本章提出的许多有益评论,以及感谢 Rebekha Abbuhl 的出色研究和编辑协助。
Thanks to Donna Lardiere, Alison Mackey, and Gigliana Melzi for their many helpful comments on this chapter, and to Rebekha Abbuhl for excellent research and editorial assistance.
本章的撰写得到了 NSF SBR-9905273、NIH R01 HD049347 的支持,以及国家自闭症研究联盟、Mabel Flory Trust 和辉瑞公司的研究资助。作者感谢 Paul Aisen、Sherry Ash、Harriet Bowden、Stefano Cappa、Alfonso Caramazza、Jeff Connor-Linton、Antonio Damasio、John Drury、Ivy埃斯塔布鲁克、安吉拉·弗里德里奇、詹妮弗·甘格尔、马修·格尔凡德、乔丹·格拉夫曼、约瑟夫·格罗津斯基、格雷戈里·希科克、阿吉·希利斯、彼得·因德弗里、伊迪丝·卡恩、艾米·奈特、索尼娅·科茨、亚历克斯·马丁、戈尔迪·安·麦奎德、罗宾·米兰达、马修·莫法、苏珊·尼茨伯格·洛特、亚伦·纽曼、阿尔瓦罗·帕斯夸尔-莱昂、大卫波佩尔、布伦达·拉普、阿尔迪·鲁洛夫斯、 Ned Sahin、Karsten Steinhauer、Tamara Swaab、Michael Thomas、Sharon Thompson-Schill、John van Meter、Jill Weisberg 以及 Matthew Walenski 在准备本章时提供了有益的建议和帮助。
This chapter was written with support from NSF SBR-9905273, NIH R01 HD049347, and research grants from the National Alliance for Autism Research, the Mabel Flory Trust, and Pfizer, Inc. The author thanks Paul Aisen, Sherry Ash, Harriet Bowden, Stefano Cappa, Alfonso Caramazza, Jeff Connor-Linton, Antonio Damasio, John Drury, Ivy Estabrooke, Angela Friederici, Jennifer Ganger, Matthew Gelfand, Jordan Grafman, Yosef Grodzinsky, Gregory Hickok, Argye Hillis, Peter Indefrey, Edith Kaan, Amy Knight, Sonja Kotz, Alex Martin, Goldie Ann McQuaid, Robbin Miranda, Matthew Moffa, Susan Nitzberg Lott, Aaron Newman, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, David Poeppel, Brenda Rapp, Ardi Roelofs, Ned Sahin, Karsten Steinhauer, Tamara Swaab, Michael Thomas, Sharon Thompson-Schill, John van Meter, Jill Weisberg, and particularly Matthew Walenski, for useful suggestions and help in preparing this chapter.
感谢 Philip Carter、Janet M. Fuller、Kirk Hazen、Andrea Kleene、Anastasia Nylund、Aida Premilovac、Daniel Schreier、Corinne Seals、Barbara Soukup 和 Walt Wolfram。
Thanks to Philip Carter, Janet M. Fuller, Kirk Hazen, Andrea Kleene, Anastasia Nylund, Aida Premilovac, Daniel Schreier, Corinne Seals, Barbara Soukup, and Walt Wolfram.
感谢 Jonathan Frank 对本章草稿版本的评论。
Thanks to Jonathan Frank for comments on a draft version of this chapter.
“历史是普遍的、基本的,”一位历史学教授在一次教职工会议上说,“它关乎所有时间、所有地点的所有人和每一件事。” “是的,”他的语言学同事说道,“但是如果没有语言,你如何记录和解读历史呢?” 事实上,很难想象如果没有语言,没有通过复述故事和传奇将发生的事情记录从一代传给下一代的手段,甚至在书面记录出现之前,历史怎么会存在。 人类历史(和史前史)的大部分内容包括开发和改造各种工具以满足广泛的需求:想想轮子、动物驯养、蒸汽机、电脑和互联网。如果没有语言,这些工具以及所有其他工具的开发和完善就不可能完成。
“History is universal and basic,” a history professor said during a faculty meeting, “It’s about every event that involves all people at all times and in all places.” “Yes,” observed his colleague from linguistics, “but how would you record and interpret that history without language?” Indeed, it is hard to imagine how there could even be history without language, without a means to pass a record of what has happened from one generation to the next through retold stories and sagas, even before written records. Much of the history (and prehistory) of the human species consists of the development and adaptation of various tools to meet a broad range of needs: think of the wheel, the domestication of animals, the steam engine, computers, and the internet. The development and refinement of these and all other tools could not have been accomplished without language.
人类的自我意识和抽象思维能力即使不依赖于语言,也得益于语言。传递复杂信息、讨论事件意义和替代行动可能产生的结果、分享感受和想法的能力——如果没有语言,所有这些都是不可能的。语言的起源晦涩难懂,但考古记录表明,语言交流大约在 20 万年前就出现了。个人为自己塑造世界和使用语言交流的能力可能是人类物种最有利的进化适应能力。
The human capacity for self-awareness and abstract thought is facilitated by language, if not dependent upon it. The ability to transfer complex information, to discuss the meaning of events and possible outcomes of alternative actions, to share feelings and ideas – all these are impossible without language. The origins of language are shrouded in obscurity, but archaeological records suggest that communication with language emerged about 200,000 years ago. The ability of an individual to model the world for him/herself and to communicate using language was probably the single most advantageous evolutionary adaptation of the human species.
可以想象,语言的精确定义并不容易,因为语言现象复杂且面面俱到。Finegan 和 Besnier ( 1989 ) 认为,我们可以将语言定义为由元素和原则组成的有限系统,它使说话者能够构造句子来完成特定的交际工作。系统的一部分使说话者能够生成和解释符合语法的句子,这部分称为语法能力。它包括哪些语音属于特定语言,以及这些语音可以或不可以如何组合在一起的知识。语法能力还包括了解一种语言中不同语音序列所表示的含义,以及如何将这些意义单位组合成单词、短语和句子。语法能力使英语使用者能够将 21 个语音组合在一起,听起来像“狗把猫赶上树”,并允许另一个英语使用者理解狗、猫、和树是什么,追逐是什么,哪个方向是向上。此外,语法能力使这些英语使用者能够理解是狗在追逐,是猫爬上了树。当然,这不仅适用于英语。语法能力同样有助于理解所有人类语言。
As one can imagine, a precise definition of language is not easy to provide, because the language phenomenon is complex and has many facets. Slightly modifying a definition provided by Finegan and Besnier (1989), we might define language as a finite system of elements and principles that make it possible for speakers to construct sentences to do particular communicative jobs. The part of the system that allows speakers to produce and interpret grammatical sentences is called grammatical competence. It includes the knowledge of which speech sounds are part of a given language and how they may and may not be strung together. Grammatical competence also includes knowing the meanings signified by different sound sequences in a language and how to combine those units of meaning into words, phrases, and sentences. Grammatical competence is what allows a speaker of English to string together twenty-one sounds that sound something like “The dog chased the cat up the tree” and allows another speaker of English to understand what dogs, cats, and trees are, what chasing is, and which way is up. Further, grammatical competence is what allows these speakers of English to share the understanding that it was the dog doing the chasing and that it was the cat that went up the tree. Of course this does not apply only to English. Grammatical competence contributes similarly to comprehension in all human languages.
但人们使用语言不仅仅是为了传达语法句子的字面意义。“狗把猫赶上树”这个句子可能用于完成各种各样的工作:讲述故事的一部分,向狗的主人抱怨,帮助猫的主人找到他的宠物。定义的第二部分“做特定的交流工作”是指交际能力。人们用语言做的最频繁的“工作”就是与他人交流。
But people use language to do far more than just communicate the literal meanings of grammatical sentences. The sentence “The dog chased the cat up the tree” might be used to accomplish a wide variety of jobs: to narrate part of a story, to complain to the dog’s owner, to help the cat’s owner find his pet. The second part of the definition, “to do particular communicative jobs,” refers to communicative competence. The most frequent “job” that people do with language is communicate with other people.
如果没有交际能力,语法能力对于人际交往几乎毫无用处。事实上,语言的很多实际使用根本不是在句子中,而是在比句子大或小的话语单位中,有些是语法的(在形式语言学中使用的技术意义上),有些不是。为了有效,说话者必须将语法能力与如何根据当前目的和语境适当使用语法句子(和其他语言结构)的知识结合起来。两者结合起来构成了交际能力。交际能力——语法能力中包含的知识加上使用该知识完成各种交际工作的能力——构成了语言。
Grammatical competence is almost useless for human interaction without communicative competence. In fact, a lot of the actual use of language is not in sentences at all, but in discourse units larger and smaller than sentences, some grammatical (in the technical sense used in formal linguistics), some not. To be effective, speakers have to combine grammatical competence with the knowledge of how to use grammatical sentences (and other pieces of linguistic structure) appropriately for the purpose and context at hand. The two taken together comprise communicative competence. Communicative competence – the knowledge included in grammatical competence plus the ability to use that knowledge to accomplish a wide range of communicative jobs – constitutes language.
经过数千年的进化,人类的声道已经足够灵活,能够发出各种可辨别的声音,并且能够感知这些声音之间的差异。但最重要的是,人类已经发展出使用这些声音来传达意义的能力。没有人知道这是如何发生的。也许,为各种其他适应目的而进化的心理能力(如精细运动手眼协调)被“重新利用”来支持复杂的符号和交流系统。也许某些心理能力专门用于语言,并随着人类交流的日益复杂而逐渐进化。或者,一旦达到一定的神经和认知复杂程度,大脑的突触就会“重组”,从而使语言的发展成为可能。
Over thousands of years of evolution, the human species developed a vocal tract flexible enough to produce a wide range of distinguishable sounds and the ability to perceive differences among those sounds. But most important, the human species developed the ability to use these sounds in systems which could communicate meaning. No one knows just how this happened. Perhaps mental capacities that had evolved for a variety of other adaptive purposes (like fine motor hand–eye coordination) were “re-purposed” to support a complex symbolic and communicative system. Perhaps some mental capacities are exclusively dedicated to language and evolved more gradually along with the increasing complexity of human communication. Or perhaps once they reached a certain level of neurological and cognitive complexity, the synapses of the brain “reorganized” themselves, making the development of language possible.
尽管语言在很多方面都存在差异,但它们都是由相同的遗传信息形成的,它们都以基本相同的方式被大脑处理,而且毫不奇怪,它们都具有某些基本的“设计特征”和结构特征,使它们能够以它们的方式发挥作用。例如,尽管不同的语言使用不同的声音组合,但它们的声音是根据一些原则组织和组合的。如果语言没有共同的、普遍的特征,我们就会认为语言的声音及其组合会随机变化。相反,语言的声音及其组合是有限的和系统的。同样,所有语言在如何将单词组合成短语和句子方面都遵循类似的限制。
Although languages differ in many ways, they are all made possible by the same genetic information, they are all processed by the brain in basically the same ways, and, not surprisingly, they all share certain fundamental “design features” and structural characteristics that enable them to work the way they do. For example, although different languages use different sets of sounds, their sounds are organized and combined according to just a few principles. If there were no shared, universal features of language, we would expect the sounds of languages and their combinations to vary randomly. Instead, the sounds of languages and their combinations are limited and systematic. Likewise, all languages follow similar constraints on how they can combine words into phrases and sentences.
理解和解释所有语言的普遍属性以及不同语言之间的差异属性是语言学家的基本工作。
Understanding and explaining the properties which are universal to all languages – as well as those which vary across languages – is the fundamental job of the linguist.
大多数语言学家认为语言是一个模块化系统。也就是说,人们使用一组子系统(或模块)以协调的方式产生和解释语言。每个模块负责整个工作的一部分;它将其他模块的输出作为输入,并将自己的输出分配给其他模块。神经语言学研究表明,大脑的不同区域与语言处理的不同方面相关,正如以下章节所示,将语言划分为模块极大地方便了语言分析。
Most linguists believe that language is a modular system. That is, people produce and interpret language using a set of component subsystems (or modules) in a coordinated way. Each module is responsible for a part of the total job; it takes the output of other modules as its input and distributes its own output to those other modules. Neurolinguistic studies show that different regions of the brain are associated with different aspects of language processing and, as the following chapters show, dividing language into modules facilitates linguistic analyses greatly.
有些模块长期以来一直是语言学的核心。语音学是关于语音的产生和解释。音系学研究语言整体以及个别语言中原始语音的组织。更大的语言单位是形态学领域,研究单词的结构——以及句法领域,研究句子的结构。与这些模块交互的是词汇,即语言元素及其意义和结构属性的储存库。近几十年来,哲学家们已经发展了语义学的正式研究(对字面意义的详细分析),语言学也已将语义学纳入并作为语言的另一个模块。最近,话语(超越句子的语言组织)已被大多数语言学家视为语言的另一个重要子系统。
Some modules have been central to linguistics for a long time. Phonetics is about production and interpretation of speech sounds. Phonology studies the organization of raw phonetics in language overall as well as in individual languages. Larger linguistic units are the domain of morphology, the study of structure within words – and of syntax, the study of the structure of sentences. Interacting with these modules is the lexicon, the repository of linguistic elements with their meanings and structural properties. In recent decades, philosophers have developed the formal study of semantics (the detailed analysis of literal meaning), and linguistics has incorporated and added semantics as another module of language. Still more recently, discourse – organization of language above and beyond the sentence – has been recognized by most linguists as another important subsystem of language.
语言的每个模块都处理一些离散的语言单位(音素、词素、单词、短语、句子、话语)的特征、分布和协调。离散性是语言的另一个属性,它将连续的声音或意义空间划分为离散的单位。人类可以发出的声音范围是连续的,就像滑哨一样。例如,你可以从高音“长e ”(如feed)一直滑到低音“短a ”(如bat)。但所有语言都将连续的声音空间划分为离散的类别,就像大多数西方音乐将连续的音高范围划分为音阶中的离散步骤一样。在一种语言中离散的声音在另一种语言中可能不是离散的。例如,在英语中,我们区分 [a](“短 a ”)和 [ ɛ ](“短e ”),因此pat和pet是不同的词。德语中情况并非如此,所以德语使用者很难听出pet和pat之间的区别。同时,德语有一个元音类似于英语的“长a ”,但唇形是圆的,拼写为ö,称为“ o -umlaut”。类似于英语“长a ”的元音与这个圆唇元音之间的区别导致了Sehne(“tendon”)和Söhne (“sons”)之间含义上的差异。对于德语使用者来说,这种区别就像英语使用者区分pet和pat一样容易,但对于英语使用者来说却很难。究竟 什么是离散的,在不同语言中是不同的,但所有语言都具有离散性。
Each module of language deals with the characterization, distribution, and coordination of some discrete linguistic unit (phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, sentences, utterances). Discreteness, another property of languages, divides the continuous space of sound or meaning into discrete units. The range of sounds that human beings can make is continuous, like a slide whistle. For example, you can slide from a high “long e” sound (as in feed) all the way down to a low “short a” sound (as in bat) in one continuous glide. But all languages divide that continuous space of sound into discrete categories, just as most western music divides the continuous range of pitch into discrete steps in a scale. Sounds that are discrete in one language may not be discrete in another. In English, for example, we distinguish [a], “short a,” from [ɛ], “short e,” so that pat and pet are different words. The same is not true in German, so German speakers have trouble hearing any difference between pet and pat. At the same time, German has a vowel that is like the English “long a,” but with rounded lips, spelled ö and called “o-umlaut.” The distinction between the vowel that is like English “long a” and this rounded vowel is responsible for the meaning difference between Sehne (‘tendon’) and Söhne (‘sons’). This distinction is as easy for German speakers as the pet and pat distinction is for English speakers, but it is hard for English speakers. Precisely what is discrete varies from one language to another, but all languages have the property of discreteness.
离散性还体现在语言的其他模块中,例如含义。色谱就是一个明显的例子。颜色变化是一个连续体——红色从红橙色渐变为橙色,再到黄橙色,最后变成黄色,依此类推。但是,所有语言都将色谱划分为离散的类别,尽管语言在将连续体划分为词语方面有所不同。有些语言只有两个基本颜色词,大致意思是“亮”和“暗”;其他语言则添加了红色、黄色和绿色,而其他语言(包括英语)则发展出了更多颜色的词语。同样,虽然爱斯基摩人有数百种描述雪的词语的说法可能言过其实,但生活在遥远北方的美洲原住民的语言确实比那些为了满足生活在温暖气候中的人们的需求而发展的语言区分了更多种类的雪。同样,美式英语也有一系列用于描述不同类型汽车的词语(例如轿车、运动型多用途车、小型货车、敞篷车、旅行车、跑车),这些词语与汽车在该文化中的重要性有关。
Discreteness also shows itself in other modules of language, such as meaning. The color spectrum is a clear example. Color variation is a continuum – red shades through red-orange to orange to yellow-orange to yellow and so on through the spectrum. But all languages divide the color spectrum into discrete categories, although languages differ in how they divide that continuum into words. In some languages there are only two basic color terms, roughly meaning ‘light’ and ‘dark’; others add red, yellow, and green, whereas still others, including English, have developed words for many more colors. Likewise, although the claim that Eskimos have hundreds of terms for snow may be overstated, the languages of Native Americans living in the far north do distinguish more kinds of snow than do languages which have developed to meet the needs of peoples living in warmer climates. Similarly, American English has a range of words for different types of automotive vehicles (sedan, sports utility vehicle, minivan, convertible, wagon, sports car, for example) related to the importance of the automobile in that culture.
语言由独立的声音、单词、句子和其他发声单位组成。从听觉上讲,声音和单词是相互融合的。(如果你成年后尝试学习第二语言,你就会知道区分以正常对话速度说出的单词有多难。)令人惊讶的是,只有几周大的婴儿能够区分他们家乡语言中非常相似的声音,并在很小的时候就区分出他们正在学习的语言的声音和其他语言的声音。此外,生命的第一年或第二年的孩子无需任何指导就能学会从语音流中挑选出单词。我们听到的语音是一系列单独的声音、单词和句子,这实际上是一项令人难以置信的成就(更令人难以置信的是,我们是在瞬间和无意识中做到这一点的它)。
Language is composed of separate sounds, words, sentences, and other utterance units. Acoustically sounds and words blend into each other. (If you have tried to learn a second language as an adult, you know how hard it can be to separate words spoken at a normal conversational pace.) Remarkably, babies only a few weeks old are able to distinguish even closely related sounds in the language of their home from each other and to distinguish the sounds that belong to the language they are learning from the sounds in other languages at a very early age. Furthermore, children in the first year or two of life learn to pick out words from the stream of speech with no instruction. The fact that we hear speech as a sequence of individual sounds, words, and sentences is actually an incredible accomplishment (and all the more incredible for how instantaneously and unconsciously we do it).
所有语言都将这些基本的离散单位组织成成分,即语言单位组,这样更复杂的单位就可以进入结构中,而更简单的单位也可以进入结构中。所以我们可以用英语说,“她坐了下来”,“那个聪明的女人坐了下来”,“那个身材高挑、黑发、穿着鲜红色毛衣戴着珍珠项链的聪明女人坐了下来”。每个斜体短语都构成一个名词短语(在这些例子中是句子的主语);名词短语可以像第一个句子中的代词一样简单,也可以通过使用形容词和介词短语修饰名词而变得更复杂。由成分组成使语言具有结构和灵活性的平衡。成分可以被其他成分替换,但不能用一系列不是成分的单词替换成分。所以你不能用穿着鲜红色毛衣的聪明人替换她( “穿着鲜红色毛衣的聪明人坐下”不起作用)。成分可以移动,但只能移动完整的成分。她非常聪明是可能的,而且非常聪明,她也是,但不是聪明,她非常。
All languages organize these basic discrete units into constituents, groups of linguistic units which allow more complex units to enter structures where simpler ones are also possible. So we can say in English, “She sat down,” “The smart woman sat down,” “The tall, dark-haired, smart woman with the bright red sweater and pearl necklace sat down.” Each italicized phrase constitutes a noun phrase (which is the subject of the sentence in these examples); a noun phrase can be as simple as a pronoun as in the first sentence, or it can be made more complex by modifying the noun with adjectives and prepositional phrases. Being composed of constituents gives language a balance of structure and flexibility. Constituents can be replaced by other constituents, but you can’t replace a constituent with a series of words that is not a constituent. So you can’t replace she with smart with the bright red sweater (“Smart with the bright red sweater sat down” doesn’t work). Constituents can be moved, but you can only move a complete constituent. She is very smart is possible and so is Very smart, she is, but not Smart, she is very.
由成分组成使得语言具有递归性。递归是系统的一种属性,允许重复应用某个过程。在语言中,我们可以结合成分产生无限多种长度不定的句子。例如,英语中的协调允许我们将两个或多个相同类型的成分组合在一起。我们可以将短句(如“他很高” )扩展为较长的句子(如“他又高又强壮又英俊又体贴又善于倾听”等) ……或者无限嵌入从句来修饰名词短语,如“这是一只老鼠,它啃了杰克建造的房子里的奶酪”。
Being composed of constituents allows languages to be recursive. Recursion is a property of systems which allows a process to be applied repeatedly. In language we can combine constituents to produce an infinite variety of sentences of indefinite length. For example, coordination in English allows us to combine two or more constituents of the same type together. We can expand a short sentence like He was tall into longer sentences like He was tall and strong and handsome and thoughtful and a good listener and … or infinitely embed clauses to modify noun phrases, as in This is the mouse that nibbled the cheese that lay in the house that Jack built.
语言的递归性具有深远的意义。这意味着没有人可以通过记住该语言的所有句子来学习语言;相反,他们必须学习创建和组合该语言成分的系统。人类的大脑是有限的,但语言的递归性意味着通过学习一门语言,我们能够产生和理解无限数量的句子。语言的这种非有限性源于其生产力。即使一个人试图记住曾经说过的所有句子,他总是可以通过语言的递归规则添加另一个修饰词——(一座设计精美、结构精巧、位置优越的新建筑……)或将一个句子嵌入另一个句子中,一遍又一遍(他说她说我说他们相信你告诉我们……)。由于语言对这些递归过程的使用没有限制,因此所有语言都具有无限生产力的潜力。
The recursiveness of language has profound implications. It means that no one can learn a language by memorizing all the sentences of that language; instead, they must learn the system for creating and combining constituents in that language. The human brain is finite, but the recursive property of language means that by learning a language we are capable of producing and understanding an infinite number of sentences. This nonfinite quality of language is due to its productivity. Even if one were to attempt to memorize all the sentences ever uttered, one could always add another modifier – (A great big huge beautifully designed, skillfully constructed, well-located new building …) or embed one sentence within another, over and over again (He said that she said that I said that they believe that you told us that …) through the recursive rules of the language. Since languages place no limits on the use of these recursive processes, all languages are potentially infinitely productive.
新词(新造词)也体现了语言的生产力,它们在整个历史和社会中都出现过。当人们第一次听到一个词时,他们常常会问:“这是一个词吗?”如果他们问语言学家,答案很可能是“现在是一个词了”。如果新词是根据其语言的形态和音位规则形成的,并且在上下文中可以理解,那么它就是一个真正的词,即使它在词典中找不到。以最近创造的单词bling为例,意思是“闪亮的珠宝”。它在音位上是合乎规范的(在英语中, bl可以放在音节开头,ng [ ŋ ] 可以放在音节结尾)。这个词已经在主流公众中流行起来,现在是一个真正的词。大多数这些自发创造的词语(受特定语境启发,通常被称为俚语)使用频率不高,因此从未被收录到词典中,但有些词语 确实成为词汇的一部分(并被收录到一些更新的词典中),因为它们满足了新的需求。创造新词是一种富有成效的过程,语言通过这种过程发生变化,以满足使用者不断变化的交流需求。
Productivity in language is also demonstrated by neologisms, newly coined words, which occur all throughout history and society. When people hear a word for the first time, they often ask, “Is that a word?” If they ask a linguist, the answer is likely to be, “It is now.” If the novel word is formed according to the morphological and phonological rules of its language and it is understandable in context, it is a bona fide word, even if it’s not found in a dictionary. Consider the word bling, recently coined to mean ‘flashy jewelry.’ It is phonologically well-formed (in English bl is allowed at the beginning of syllables, and the ng [ŋ] sound is allowed at the end). The word has caught on in the mainstream public and is now a bona fide word. Most of these spontaneous coinings – inspired by a particular context, and often labeled as slang – are not used frequently enough to ever make it into a dictionary, but some coinings do become part of the lexicon (and are included in some updated dictionaries) because they meet a new need. Coining new words is one productive process by which languages change to meet the changing communicative needs of their speakers.
语言的生产力很大程度上源于这样一个事实:语言是围绕一组有限的原则组织的,这些原则系统地限制了声音、词素、单词、短语和句子的组合方式。一种语言的母语人士无意识地“知道”这些原则,并能用它们来产生和解释无限多样的话语。定义和明确这些原则是研究语法能力的语言学家的目标之一。
The productivity of languages derives, in large part, from the fact that they are organized around a finite set of principles which systematically constrain the ways in which sounds, morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences may be combined. A native speaker of a language unconsciously “knows” these principles and can use them to produce and interpret an infinite variety of utterances. Defining and making these principles explicit is one of the goals of linguists studying grammatical competence.
虽然语言生产力源自一套有限的原则,这些原则系统地限制了声音、词素、单词、短语和句子的表达方式,但 综上所述,语言在音义对应方面是任意的。除了少数例外,词语与其含义之间没有原则性或系统的联系。英语中前三个数字是一、二、三,但中文则是一、二、三。这两种语言都没有“正确”的词来表示这些数字或其他任何东西,因为根本没有这样的东西(Bolton,1982:5)。即使是拟声词,那些应该听起来像它们所命名的声音的拟声词,例如表示声音的词语,如叮咚和咔哒,以及各种动物发出的声音,也是任意的,并且因语言而异。例如,在英语中,狗会说bow wow或woof woof,但在印地语中它会说bho: bho:。希腊狗说gav,韩国狗说mung mung。人们通过各自语言的任意“声音过滤器”来感知这些声音,因此,即使是像狗叫这样看似客观的东西,在语言中实际上也是任意表示的。
While productivity in language derives from a finite set of principles which systematically constrain the ways in which sounds, morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences may be combined, language is arbitrary in its sound–meaning correspondence. With few exceptions, words have no principled or systematic connection with what they mean. In English, the first three numbers are one, two, three – but in Chinese they are yi, er, san. Neither language has the “right” word for the numerals or for anything else, because there is no such thing (Bolton, 1982: 5). Even onomatopoetic words that are supposed to sound like the noise they name – for example, words for sounds, like ding-dong and click and the sounds various animals make – are arbitrary and vary from language to language. In English, for example, a dog says bow wow or perhaps woof woof, but in Hindi it says bho: bho:. Greek dogs say gav and Korean dogs say mung mung. People perceive these sounds through the arbitrary “sound filters” of their respective languages, so even something as seemingly objective as a dog’s bark is in fact represented arbitrarily in language.
一种特定语言所使用的语音清单也是任意的。英语只使用 36 种不同的声音(根据如何分析英语语音系统的差异,声音数量会多一些或少一些)。但正如您将在第 1 章中详细了解到的那样,英语中使用的声音并不全部与讲其他语言所需的声音相同,它们的组合方式也不相同。英语的 36 种声音又任意用 26 个字母表示,其中一些字母代表两个或多个声音(例如gin和gimp中的g),而其他声音则有两种或更多不同的拼写方式(考虑center中的c和sender中的s或cup中的c、kelp中的k和quiche中的qu)。单词和声音的排列模式也是任意的。我们非常清楚tax的含义,但任何以英语为母语的人都毫无疑问地知道没有 xat这样的词。在英语中,形容词位于名词之前 - 因此是fat man;在法语中,名词位于形容词之前,因此法语中名词是homme gros。任意性是手语和口语的共同特征。手语中的一些手势是标志性的——它们看起来就像它们的意思——但大多数手势没有给出它们含义的丝毫线索。
The inventory of speech sounds used by a particular language is also arbitrary. English is spoken using only 36 different sounds (a few more or less, depending on how the English sound system is analyzed). But, as you will learn in detail in Chapter 1, the sounds used in English are not all the same as the sounds needed to speak other languages, nor are they put together in the same way. The 36 sounds of English are in turn arbitrarily represented by 26 letters, some of which stand for two or more sounds (like g in gin and in gimp) while other sounds are spelled in two or more different ways (consider c in center and s in sender or c in cup, k in kelp, and qu in quiche). The patterns into which words and sounds are arranged are also arbitrary. We know perfectly well what tax means but any English speaker knows without a doubt that there is no such word as xat. Adjectives go before nouns in English – so it’s fat man; in French nouns go before adjectives, making it homme gros. Arbitrariness is a property of sign languages as well as spoken languages. Some manual signs in sign languages are iconic – they look like what they mean – but most signs give not the slightest clue to their meaning.
重要的是要记住,任意性并不意味着无序。例如,这意味着一种语言使用的声音及其组合原则本质上并不比任何其他语言更好或更差。同样,这意味着一种语言变体(或方言)排列单词的原则本质上并不比另一种语言更好或更差。例如,许多说标准英语变体的非语言学家认为使用两个表示否定(称为否定一致)的单词是“不正确的”,例如我没有看到任何人。但是,其他语言(如意大利语)的标准变体中也使用 否定一致:
It’s important to remember that arbitrariness doesn’t mean randomness. It means that, for example, the sounds that one language uses and the principles by which they are combined are inherently no better or worse than those of any another language. Likewise, it means that the principles of one language variety (or dialect) for arranging words are inherently no better or worse than those of another. For example, many non-linguists who speak the standard variety of English believe that it is “incorrect” to use two words that express negation (referred to as negative concord), as in I didn’t see nobody. However, negative concord is used in the standard variety in other languages such as Italian:
| 朱莉娅 | 非 | 哈 | 维斯托 | 没有。 |
| 朱莉娅 | 不是 | 有 | 看到 | 没有人 |
| “朱莉娅没有看到任何人。” | ||||
一些非标准意大利语变体也像标准英语一样使用单数否定形式。语言的这种无序性也许是公众最需要学习的语言学课程之一。这意味着没有一种语言——也没有一种特定社会中的语言变体——是“正确”的说话方式,也没有一个群体会说不合语法。
And some nonstandard varieties of Italian use the singular negative just like standard English. This property of abritrariness in language is, perhaps, one of the most needed linguistics lessons for the general public. It means that no one language – and no one language variety in a particular society – is the “correct” way of speaking, and no group speaks ungrammatically.
任意性(声音序列与意义之间或短语中词序之间的关联)的一个必然结果是二元性。因为单词one(按音标发音为 [w ʌ n])的发音并不一定与数字 1 相关,所以相同的声音序列(但拼写为won)也可用于表示完全不同的东西——动词 to win的过去式(Bolton,1982 :5)。但是,如果相同的声音序列在同一种语言中可以表示不同的概念,那么当我说 [w ʌ n]时,你怎样才能弄清楚我想要表达的意思呢?答案是,你必须依赖于上下文,这个答案既复杂又显而易见。如果我在名词前说 [w ʌ n] ,比如“[w ʌ n] dog”,你的英语语法知识会让你猜出我的意思是one。另一方面,如果我在名词(或代词)后说 [w ʌ n] ,如“Mary [w ʌ n]”,同样的知识也会让您猜出我指的是win的过去时。
A corollary of arbitrariness – of association between sound sequences and meanings or in the order of words in phrases – is duality. Because there is nothing about the pronunciation of the word one (transcribed phonetically – as it sounds – it would be [wʌn]) that necessarily associates it with the numeral 1, that same sequence of sounds (but spelled won) can also be used to mean something entirely different – the past tense of the verb to win (Bolton, 1982: 5). But if the same sequence of sounds can represent different concepts in the same language, how are you able to figure out which meaning I intend when I say [wʌn]? The answer – which is as complex as it is obvious – is that you rely on its context. If I say [wʌn] before a noun, as in “[wʌn] dog,” your knowledge of English grammar will lead you to guess that I mean one. On the other hand, if I say [wʌn] after a noun (or pronoun), as in “Mary [wʌn],” that same knowledge will lead you to guess that I mean the past tense of win.
依赖于上下文是语言的一个重要特性,它不仅能帮助我们理解“one”和“won”等词的含义,还能帮助我们解读整个话语的含义。句子的含义主要取决于说出该句子的上下文。该上下文可能是紧接在它之前的句子,也可能是说出该句子的更广泛的物理或社会环境。如果有人说“One”,那么该话语的含义只有在前面的话语的上下文中才会清楚 — — 例如,“你想要一块糖还是两块?”同样,“这里好冷”可能是抱怨,要求关窗,甚至是赞美(也许是关于冰箱的)。给定代词(如“ she”、“it”、“us”或“them”)指代的人或物可能依赖于前面的句子或直接的物理环境。语言依靠形式(所说的内容)和上下文(何时、何地、由谁说以及对谁说)之间的联系来传达比单词序列所包含的内容更多的信息。
Reliance on context is a crucial property of languages, not just in figuring out the meaning of words like one and won, but in interpreting the meaning of entire utterances. The meaning of a sentence depends crucially on the context in which it is uttered. That context could be the sentence or sentences that immediately precede it, or it could be the broader physical or social circumstances in which the sentence it uttered. If someone says “One,” the meaning of that utterance is only clear in the context of a preceding utterance – for example, “Do you want one lump of sugar or two?” Similarly, “It’s cold in here” could be a complaint, a request to close a window, or even a compliment (about a freezer, perhaps). Who or what a given pronoun (like she, it, us, or them) refers to may rely on prior sentences or the immediate physical environment. Languages rely on the connection between form (what is said) and context (when, where, by whom, and to whom it is said) to communicate much more than is contained in a sequence of words.
尽管所有语言都具有一些共同的特征,但语言之间也存在许多差异。人们使用的语言因说话者和说话环境的不同而不同。事实上,多变性是语言最重要且最令人钦佩的特性之一。多变性(也称为差异和多样性)是信息的本质。没有光频率的变化,就不会有视觉;没有声音频率的变化,就不会有语言和音乐。(我们开始意识到,如果没有一定程度的遗传多样性,我们的生态系统就会受到威胁。)语言的多变性使人们能够传达的远不止他们所说的单词和句子的语义内容。语言的多变性是指示性的。说话者使用不同的语言来表明他们的社会身份(地理、社会地位、种族甚至性别),并定义当前的言语情况。
Although all languages share some universal characteristics, languages also differ in many ways. The language that people use varies depending on who’s speaking and the situation in which they’re speaking. In fact, variability is one of the most important – and admirable – properties of language. Variation (also known as difference and diversity) is the essence of information. Without variation in light frequencies, there would be no sight; without variation in sound frequencies, there would be no speech and no music. (And as we are beginning to realize, without a certain minimum level of genetic diversity, our ecosystem is threatened.) Variability in language allows people to communicate far more than the semantic content of the words and sentences they utter. The variability of language is indexical. Speakers vary the language they use to signal their social identities (geographical, social status, ethnicity, and even gender), and also to define the immediate speech situation.
人们通过他们所使用的语言的多样性让世界知道他们是谁。他们只需说几句话就能透露他们的地理和社会地位的出身。人们他们还使用多种语言来表明自己属于一系列重叠的社会群体——男性或女性、青少年或成年人、特定族群的成员。尽管老师竭尽全力改变他们的语言,但他们仍保留着自己的语言,因为在潜意识层面,保持与自己出身的联系比任何改变的理由都重要。
People let the world know who they are by the variety of their language that they use. They reveal their geographical and social status origins after saying just a few words. People also use their variety of language to signal membership in a range of overlapping social groups – as male or female, as a teenager or an adult, as a member of a particular ethnic group. They keep their speech, often despite the best efforts of teachers to change it, because at an unconscious level, maintaining their ties to their origin is more important than any reason to change.
人们还使用语言变化来传达他们说话的情形和目的,以及他们在这些情形中扮演的角色。牧师在布道时使用的语言形式与在教堂礼拜后的社交时间不同,扮演不同的角色(并将不同的角色投射到他所面对的教徒身上)。在工作中,人们对下属和上级说话的方式不同,在咖啡休息期间和在会议上说话的方式也不同。父母对自己的孩子说话的方式与对其他成年人(甚至对别人的孩子)说话的方式也不同。书面使用的语言通常与口语中使用的语言不同,反映和传达了语言产生的不同条件及其各种目的。
People also use language variation to communicate the situation and purpose in which they are talking, as well as the roles they are playing in those situations. A priest uses different forms of language during a sermon than during the social hour after a church service, playing different roles (and projecting different roles on the churchgoers he addresses). At work, people speak differently to subordinates than to superiors, and differently during coffee breaks than in meetings. Parents speak differently to their children than to other adults (or even to other people’s children). The language used in writing typically differs from the language used in speaking, reflecting and communicating the different conditions under which language is produced and its various purposes.
语言社区的文化很大一部分是通过语言变化这一媒介来传达的。适当的语言使用规范有助于说话者构建和协商彼此之间的关系。语言的各种形式和用法的非书面和无意识应用的规则可能因文化环境、社会内部和社会之间,甚至性别而异。当说话者不知不觉地按照不同的文化规范行事时,这会增加误解的风险,但当理解这些差异时,我们看待世界的方式就会丰富起来。
A large part of a speech community’s culture is transacted through the medium of language variation. Norms of appropriate language use help speakers to construct and negotiate their relations to each other. The unwritten and unconsciously applied rules for the various forms and uses of language can vary from one cultural milieu to another, within and between societies, and even between genders. This raises the risk of misunderstanding when speakers unknowingly are behaving according to different cultural norms, but enriches our ways of seeing the world when those differences are understood.
语言变异也是语言变化的机制。每当一个新词被创造出来,语言的词汇就会发生一点变化。它的声音清单及其相互关系会随着时间的推移而变化,有时是由于移民或与其他语言的接触,有时是由于其语言社区内部的创新(见第 9 章)。句子中允许的单词顺序也会发生变化(见第 8 章)。甚至规定性规则也会随着时尚或政策的发展而改变(见 第 11 章)。
Language variation is also the mechanism by which languages change. The lexicon of a language changes just a bit every time a new word is coined. Its inventory of sounds, and their relations to each other, changes over time, sometimes due to migration or contact with another language, sometimes due to innovations from within its speech community (see Chapter 9). The order of words allowed in sentences can change as well (see Chapter 8). Even the prescriptive rules can change with developments in fashion or policy (see Chapter 11).
语言变异的后果之一是,任何一种语言的变体或方言都不可能比其他的更好;每种变体或方言都只是语言变化过程中的一个缩影。语言学家发现,有时从共时性角度(作为一个固定系统)来看待语言在分析上很有用,但语言系统总是会发展成一个新的系统。约翰·麦克沃特(John McWhorter )( 1998)反对“纯”标准英语的神话,他写道:
One of the consequences of language variation is that no variety or dialect of a language can be better than any other; each is simply a snapshot in the process of language change. Linguists find it analytically useful sometimes to look at language synchronically (as a fixed system), but it is a system always developing into a new system. John McWhorter (1998), arguing against the myth of a “pure” standard English, wrote:
任何语言都在不断演变成一种新的语言,而我们认为“不准确”和不正确的许多声音、词义和句型正是未来“正确”语言的组成部分……我们所认为的“偏离常态”只不过是从一个人的一生的角度来看待语言变化的样子。
Any language is always and forever on its way to changing into a new one, with many of the sounds, word meanings, and sentence patterns we process as “sloppy” and incorrect being the very things that will constitute the “proper” language of the future … What we perceive as “departures from the norm” are nothing more or less than what language change looks like from the point of view of a single lifetime.
考虑一下法语、意大利语和西班牙语都是从拉丁语发展而来的,曾被认为是拉丁语的“腐败”版本。我们现在称之为标准的英语是社会政治偶然的结果,是从 1300 年代英国权力中心的方言发展而来的。我们或许能够消除对讲英语的人的大量歧视如果更多的人理解每种语言和语言的方言都是连贯的,并且同样有效,那么“非标准”变体系统。
Consider that French, Italian, and Spanish each developed from Latin and were once considered “corrupt” versions of Latin. The variety of English we now call standard is the result of a sociopolitical accident, developing from the dialect of the center of British power in the 1300s. We might be able to eliminate a lot of discrimination against speakers of “nonstandard” varieties if more people understood that each language and dialect of a language is a coherent, and equally valid, system.
语言是人类的普遍特征,这一事实意味着所有语言(和语言变体)都是平等的。也就是说,它们都来自相同的基因蓝图,并且都同样是“人类”。语言变体之所以不同,是因为它们随着时间的推移适应了其语言社区的不同需求。每种语言的做法都不同:一些语言明确区分几种动词时态(英语只标记两种);一些语言将名词组织成许多“性别”类别(英语没有)。每种语言在满足其自身语言社区的交流需求方面都具有同等的“功能性”。但有时当两个或多个语言社区接触时,一个群体会比其他群体拥有更多的权力、地位或经济资源。毫不奇怪,该主导群体的语言变体通常也被认为具有更高的地位,特别是如果使用该语言可以获得更多权力或财富的话。相比之下,较弱群体使用的语言变体通常被视为“不正确”或“不好”的语言。
The fact that language is a universal characteristic of human beings means that all languages (and language varieties) are equal. That is, they all come from the same genetic blueprint, and they all are equally “human.” Language varieties differ because over time they have adapted to the differing needs of their speech communities. Each language does things differently: some languages explicitly distinguish between several verb tenses (English marks only two); some languages organize nouns into many “gender” categories (English does not). Each language is equally “functional” at meeting the communicative needs of its own speech community. But sometimes when two or more speech communities come into contact, one group will have more power, status, or economic resources than the others. Not surprisingly, the language variety of that dominant group is often perceived as having higher status as well, especially if speaking it affords increased access to power or wealth. By comparison, the language varieties spoken by the less powerful groups often are stigmatized as “incorrect” or “bad” language.
语言学家研究语言的方式与天文学家研究宇宙或人类学家研究人类文化系统的方式相同。天文学家“错误地”谈论行星绕恒星运转是荒谬的,而人类学家仅仅因为某种文化与自己的文化不同就宣称其“退化”也是不恰当的。同样,语言学家接受他们发现的语言,而不是试图按照先入为主的标准来规范它。语言学家同样对他们遇到的所有语言形式都充满好奇,无论其使用者的教育程度或社会地位如何。
Linguists approach language in the same way that astronomers approach the study of the universe or that anthropologists approach the study of human cultural systems. It would be ridiculous for astronomers to speak about planets orbiting stars “incorrectly” and inappropriate for anthropologists to declare a culture “degenerate” simply because it differs from their own. Similarly, linguists take language as they find it, rather than attempting to regulate it in the direction of preconceived criteria. Linguists are equally curious about all the forms of language that they encounter, no matter what the education or social standing of their speakers might be.
在大多数社会中,某些语言变体被认为是“正确的”,而其他语言变体则被认为是“不正确的”,这一事实对语言学家来说是一种社会现象,是语言使用的一个方面,需要进行科学探索。由于“正确的”语言 本质上并不比那些被认为是“不正确的”语言变体更好或更差,语言学家热切地寻求发现某些语言变异优于其他语言变异的原因,并研究这些信念的后果。
The fact that, in most societies, some varieties of language are perceived as “correct” while others are considered “incorrect” is, for linguists, a social phenomenon – an aspect of language use to be explored scientifically. Since “correct” language is inherently no better or worse than the varieties that are considered “incorrect,” linguists eagerly seek to discover the reasons for the conviction that some part of language variability is superior to the rest, and to examine the consequences of those beliefs.
这种语言态度(认为一种语言优于其他语言)的一个后果是,人们会认为说“不正确”语言的人在某种程度上是低人一等的,因为他们不会或不能“正确地”说话。他们的“不正确”语言随后被用来为进一步的歧视辩护——例如在教育和就业方面。基于语言使用的歧视基于两个错误的主张:一种语言天生就比其他语言更好,人们可以被教导说“正确”的语言。然而,指导一个人学习和使用口语的自然力量是如此强大,以至于明确教授如何说话几乎无关紧要。如果一个人数学不太好,我们可能有理由认为他或她在学校没有学过数学。阅读和写作也可能如此;如果一个人不会读或写,很可能是他/她出了问题。这个人的学校教育有问题。但口语却不是这样。使用否定一致,如She can't find nothing中,或将knowed写为knew 的人,可能从最熟练的老师那里得到了最好的传统语法规则指导。然而,仅仅了解规则是什么,甚至每天在学校练习几分钟,就能像一米高的松树阻止雪崩一样有效地影响一个人的说话方式。影响口语的最强大特征是它能够标记一个人作为日常生活中最亲近的群体成员的身份。这种力量每次都胜过课堂上的语法教学。
One consequence of these kinds of language attitudes – in which one language variety is considered better than others – is the corollary belief that speakers of “incorrect” varieties are somehow inferior, because they will not or cannot speak “correctly.” Their “incorrect” language is then used to justify further discrimination – in education and in employment, for example. Discrimination on the basis of language use is based on two false propositions: that one variety of language is inherently better than others, and that people can be taught to speak the “correct” variety. However, so powerful are the natural forces that guide how a person learns and uses spoken language that explicit teaching on how to speak is virtually irrelevant. If a person is not very good at mathematics, we are probably justified in assuming that he or she did not learn mathematics in school. The same may well be true of reading and writing; if someone cannot read or write, it is likely that something went wrong with that person’s schooling. But the same is not true with spoken language. A person who uses negative concord, as in She can’t find nothing, or says knowed for knew may have received the best instruction in the rules of traditional grammar from the most skilled teachers available. However, just knowing what the rules are, or even practicing them for a few minutes a day in school, will be as effective in influencing how someone speaks as a meter-high pine tree would be in stopping an avalanche. The most powerful feature influencing spoken language is its ability to mark a person’s identity as a member of the group closest to him/her in everyday life. This power trumps grammar instruction in classrooms every time.
即使受过良好教育的美式英语使用者也不会说“你为什么这样做?”(这在形式上是正确的);他们会说“你为什么这样做?”他们也不会说“你今天见到了谁?”;而是说“你今天见到了谁?”出于完全相同的原因,非标准英语使用者会说“我没有”,因为他们知道“我没有”被认为是正确的——无论是哪种情况,使用“正确的语法”都会让说话者听起来自命不凡或势利,并使他/她失去同龄人的认可。使用某种方式的语言会让人觉得你正在与对你最重要的人划清界限,这极大地阻碍了你这样做。
Even the best-educated speakers of American English will not say “For what did you do that?” (which is formally correct); they’ll say “What did you do that for?” Nor will they say “Whom did you see today?”; instead it will be “Who did you see today?” For exactly the same reason, a speaker of nonstandard English will say “I ain’t got none,” knowing that “I don’t have any” is considered correct – in either case, to use “correct grammar” would make the speaker sound posh or snobbish and cost him/her the approval of his/her peers. There is an enormous disincentive to use language in a way that makes it seem that you are separating yourself from the people who are most important to you.
事实上,那些说话方式接近认可方式的人可能不是在学校里学会的。他们只是幸运地来自制定正确言语标准的社会阶层。这个社会阶层还控制着学校——以及学校使用和教授的语言种类。具有讽刺意味的是,当孩子们在学校里学会使用社会认可的口语种类时,他们并不是从老师在课堂上明确教授的内容中学会的,而是从调整自己的言语以适应大厅里、操场上和校外其他孩子的言语中学会的,从而获得他们的赞同。
In fact, people who speak in close to the approved way probably did not learn to do so in school. They are just fortunate to come from the segment of society that sets the standards for correct speech. This segment of society also controls its schools – and the language variety used and taught in its schools. Ironically, when children learn to use the socially approved variety of spoken language in school, it is not from what their teachers explicitly teach in class, but rather from adjusting their speech to match the speech of the other children in the halls, on the playground, and outside of school, and thus gain their approval.
与其他语言学教科书不同,本书的每一章都是由一位在该领域教学和研究的语言学家撰写的。语言学领域就像它所研究的语言现象一样,内容广泛且多样,尽管语言学家们对某些观点有着共同的看法——例如,他们都认同描述性方法,并且认为所有语言变体都具有同等的功能——但他们在分析时所采用的一些假设却有所不同。一些语言学家——尤其是语音学和音系学、形态学、句法学、语义学/语用学和历史语言学领域的语言学家——在不同程度上认为,语言的形式可以脱离其使用来理解。关于这些主题的章节主要讨论语言形式,构成了 20 世纪中叶语言学的核心内容。自那时起,该领域已大大扩展,本书旨在代表这一更广泛的范围。
Unlike other linguistics textbooks, each chapter in this book has been written by a linguist who teaches and does research in that area. The field of linguistics, like the phenomenon of language which it studies, is broad and diverse, and although linguists share some beliefs – in a descriptive approach, and in the functional equality of all language varieties, for example – they differ in some of the assumptions they bring to their analyses. Some linguists – particularly those in the areas of phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics/pragmatics, and historical linguistics – assume, to varying degrees, that the forms of language can be understood separately from their use. The chapters on these topics are primarily about language form and constitute what was considered the essential core of linguistics in the mid twentieth century. Since then, the field has expanded considerably, and this book is designed to represent that broader scope.
如今,语言学研究的不仅仅是语言形式及其意义的具体细节,还包括语言的习得方式(包括第一语言和第二语言),以及语言在反映和创造谈话的互动和文化背景方面所发挥的核心作用,如何设计计算机来处理语言,以及语言如何在我们的大脑中呈现。由于该领域扩展的范围很大程度上涉及对实际使用语言的人的深入研究,因此人们对语法能力和交际能力实际上如何区分开产生了一些疑问。不同的语言学家对语法能力和交际能力之间的区别程度有不同的理解,即使是本书的撰稿人也是如此。
Today the field of linguistics studies not just the nuts-and-bolts of forms and their meanings, but also how language is learned (both as a first and second language), how it plays a central role in reflecting and creating the interactive and cultural settings of talk, how computers can be designed to deal with language, and how language is represented in our very brains. Because much of this expanded scope of the field involves intense study of people actually using language, some doubt has arisen about how separate grammatical and communicative competence actually are. The degree of distinction between grammatical and communicative competence is understood differently by different linguists, even among the contributors to this book.
例如,第 3 章“句子的结构”将句法主要描述为形式,而不是用法。 第 4 章“意义”主要涉及语义意义(语法能力的一部分)和语用意义(交际能力的一部分)之间的界限。第 1 章“语言的声音”中也存在类似的对比,涉及语音学(可观察和观察到的发音现象)和发音系统中更抽象的音系方面(语法能力的一部分)之间的界限。
For example, Chapter 3, “The structure of sentences,” presents syntax as essentially about form, not use. Chapter 4, “Meaning,” is largely about the boundary between semantic meaning (part of grammatical competence) and pragmatic meaning (part of communicative competence). A somewhat similar contrast is seen in Chapter 1, “The sounds of language,” involving the boundary between phonetics (the observable and observed phenomena of pronunciation) and the more abstract phonological aspects of pronunciation systems (a part of grammatical competence).
第 8 章“语言变化”和第 12 章“写作”隐含地介绍了语言形式和交际用法,但较少关注它们之间的严格界限。 第 5 章“话语”、第 6 章“儿童语言习得”和第 13 章“第二语言习得”的作者赞同交际能力的首要地位。在第 10 章“语言与文化”中,我们发现了语法和交际能力不可分割性的最强烈表现,因为作者建议用“语言文化”取代“语言”和“文化”这两个术语,以强调语言与其语境的不可分割性。
Chapter 8, “Language change,” and Chapter 12, “Writing,” implicitly present both language form and communicative use, but with less concern for strict boundaries between them. The sympathies of the authors of Chapter 5, “Discourse,” Chapter 6, “Child language acquisition,” and Chapter 13, “Second language acquisition,” are with the primacy of communicative competence. In Chapter 10, “Language and culture,” we find the strongest representation of the inseparability of grammatical and communicative competence, as the author suggests replacing the terms “language” and “culture” with “languaculture” to emphasize the inseparability of language from its context.
我们如何理解这些强调上的差异?也许语言学家就像盲人一样约翰·戈弗雷·萨克斯 (John Godfrey Saxe) 版本的印度盲人摸象传说。这首诗讲述了几个盲人各自触摸大象不同部位并争论他们触摸的是什么东西的故事。触摸象牙的盲人和触摸尾巴的盲人的想法截然不同。也许语言学研究大体如此,每个语言学家都“部分正确”,这取决于语言学家研究语言的哪些方面。有些方法可能走进死胡同,最终可能不得不放弃。或者也许有人会发现一个绝妙的统一见解,如物理学中的广义和狭义相对论和量子场论,它展示了所有这些方法是如何相互关联的。我们对世界和人类行为的理解在所有这些方面都有所进步。在这本书中,我们向读者介绍了语言研究的当前广度和多样性——以及它们之间的矛盾和未解决的问题。
How are we to understand these differences in emphasis? Perhaps linguists are like the blind men in John Godfrey Saxe’s version of the Indian legend about the blind men and the elephant. The poem relates the story of several blind men each touching a different part of the elephant and arguing over what sort of thing they are touching. The blind man touching the tusks of the elephant has a very different idea from the one holding the tail. Perhaps linguistic research is much the same, and each linguist is “partly in the right,” depending on which aspects of language the linguist is studying. Some approaches could be proceeding down blind alleys and may eventually have to be abandoned. Or perhaps someone will discover a brilliant unifying insight, like general and special relativity and quantum field theory in physics, which shows how all these approaches are related. Our understanding of the world and of human behavior has advanced in all these ways. In this book, we introduce our readers to the study of language in its current breadth and diversity of approaches – with their tensions and unresolved issues.
在结束本介绍时,我们提出了一些关于如何阅读本书的建议。虽然我们希望本书的内容对每个人都有用,但语言是一种广泛而多样的现象,探索如此广阔的领域有很多方法。语言的不同方面(以及语言学)与其他各种学科更相关,因此我们提出了几条穿越不同语言领域的“路线”。
We close this introduction with suggestions for how to approach this book. While we would like to think that all of it will be useful to everyone, language is a broad and diverse phenomenon and there are many ways to explore such a vast terrain. Different aspects of language – and linguistics – are more relevant to various other academic disciplines, and so we propose several “routes” through different territories of language.
多年来,我们一直为语言学专业和非专业的学生教授多节语言学入门课程,起初使用的是其他教科书,最近使用的是本教科书的第一版。最初,我们遵循“传统”结构;从共享的结构基础开始(第 1-4 章:“语言的声音”;“单词及其组成部分”;“句子的结构”;和“含义”),然后允许不同部分的教师根据他们的专业知识和兴趣选择剩余的章节。几年前,我们转向了一种教学大纲,将结构章节与后续章节更直接地整合在一起。“语言的声音”是接下来是“方言变异”,其中许多语音学和音系学的概念都以学生亲身经历的语境来举例说明。“词语及其组成部分”之后是“语言变化”;“句子结构”之后是“儿童语言习得”(或“语言与大脑”);“意义”之后是“话语”(或“语言与文化”)。这种平衡的主题顺序使学生能够将语言的结构方面与语言的各种表现形式联系起来,并为每个部分的教师留出了选择其他几章的空间。
We have taught a multi-section introductory linguistics course for both linguistics majors and non-majors for many years, at first with other textbooks and more recently with the first edition of this textbook. Initially, we followed a “traditional” structure; starting with a shared structural foundation (Chapters 1–4: “The sounds of language”; “Words and their parts”; “The structure of sentences”; and “Meaning”), and then allowing instructors of different sections to choose among the remaining chapters according to to their expertise and interest. Several years ago, we shifted to a syllabus which integrates the structural chapters with the following chapters more directly. “The sounds of language” is followed by “Dialect variation,” where many of the concepts of phonetics and phonology are exemplified in contexts that students have personally experienced. “Words and their parts” is followed by “Language change”; “The structure of sentences” is followed by “Child language acquisition” (or “Language and the brain”); and “Meaning” is followed by the chapter on “Discourse” (or “Language and culture”). This balanced sequence of topics enables students to relate the structural aspects of language to a variety of its manifestations, and leaves room for the instructor of each section to choose a couple of other chapters as well.
本教材的配套网站为www.cambridge.org/fasold。在那里,您可以找到声音文件、进一步的阅读建议、额外的练习和教学材料、链接以及关键图表的电子版。
The companion website for this textbook can be found at www.cambridge.org/fasold. There you will find sound files, further reading suggestions, additional exercises and teaching materials, links, and electronic versions of key figures.
本章讲述的是语音。没有声音,交流依然可以进行——点头、挥手、拍照或绘画。甚至没有声音也可以有语言:听不见的人会使用基于手势的语言。然而,对于我们大多数人来说,大多数时候,传达信息需要将其编码为声音。即使在写作时,我们也使用基于语音的符号(尽管有时不是非常直接)。
This chapter is about the sounds of speech. Without sound, communication can still take place – with a nod or a wave, a photograph, or a drawing. There can even be language without sound: those who cannot hear use languages based on manual signs instead. Yet for most of us most of the time, getting our message across involves encoding it in sounds. Even when we write, we use symbols that are based on speech (though sometimes not very directly).
语音研究可分为语音学和音系学两门学科。语音学将语音作为物理对象进行研究。语音学家会提出以下问题:
The study of the sounds of speech can be divided into the disciplines of phonetics and phonology. Phonetics studies speech sounds as physical objects. Phoneticians ask questions such as:
音系学研究语言如何将声音组织成不同的模式。音系学家会提出以下问题:
Phonology studies how languages organize sounds into different patterns. Phonologists ask questions such as:
我们从语音学开始,即研究语音如何产生和感知的学科,然后讨论音系学,即研究语言如何将语音组织成一个有意义的系统。
We begin with phonetics, the study of how speech sounds are made and perceived, and then discuss phonology, the study of how a language organizes those speech sounds into a meaningful system.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
您拿起电话,对着话筒说“你好?”。电话那头的声音回应道“嗨!”,随着这个音节,您的大脑中涌现出大量信息。首先,您认出了消息的内容:这是英语中传统的问候语,不同于发音相似的告别(bye!)、疑问(how?或why?)或命令(Fly!)。但您也大概能认出说话人的身份(无论有没有来电显示),并了解他或她的心理状态:兴奋、无聊、高兴或愤怒。如果您无法识别此人,您大概仍能辨别出说话人是男性还是女性,弄清楚他或她是不是英语母语人士,并大概猜出他或她来自哪里。所有这些信息怎么能浓缩成一个单词呢?
You pick up the phone and say “Hello?” into the receiver. The voice on the line responds “Hi!” and with this one syllable your brain is flooded with information. You recognize, first, the content of the message: a conventional greeting in English, distinct from the similar-sounding farewell (bye!), question (how? or why?), or command (Fly!). But you also probably recognize the identity of the person speaking, with or without caller ID, and get a sense of his or her mental state: excited, bored, happy, or angry. If you can’t identify the person, you can still probably tell if the speaker is male or female, figure out whether he or she is a native speaker of English, and make a pretty good guess about where he or she is from. How can all this information be packed into a single word?
事实上,语音构成了一个复杂的多级代码,每个能说会道的人都掌握着它的钥匙。意义被映射到说话者大脑的声音序列中,大脑发出命令来移动声道,从而在空气中或电话线上产生特征振动,影响听者的耳朵和听觉神经,听者的大脑解码信息,找出信号中与信息相对应的方面以及与声音特征相对应的方面传递信息,重新创建声音序列,从而重新创建说话者想要表达的意思。本章将介绍这种编码和解码过程在语音的组织、产生和感知过程中是如何发生的。
Speech sounds in fact constitute an elaborate multilevel code, to which every competent speaker holds the key. Meanings are mapped into sound sequences in the brain of the speaker, which sends commands for vocal tract movements, which produce characteristic vibrations in the air or on the phone line, which impact on the ear and auditory nerve of the listener, whose brain decodes the message, factoring out the aspects of the signal that correspond to the message and those that correspond to the characteristics of the messenger, recreating the sound sequence, and thus the meaning, that the speaker intends. This chapter is about how this process of encoding and decoding takes place in the organization, production, and perception of speech sounds.
语音学家面临的最大障碍之一是他们无法看到他们正在研究的对象。你看不到舌头在嘴里移动;你看不到声波在空气中传播;你看不到内耳液体的振动。然而,自古以来,语音学家就充分利用了他们所获得的信息,通过仔细聆听、测量、建模和记谱。此外,在过去几十年中,人们开发了更复杂的设备——例如磁共振成像 (MRI)、超声波和数字声学分析等设备。图 1.1显示了这些设备所看到的声道的一些图片。
One of the biggest obstacles phoneticians face is that they can’t see the objects they are studying. You can’t see the tongue as it’s moving around inside someone’s mouth; you can’t see the sound waves traveling through the air; you can’t see the vibration of the fluid in the inner ear. Since ancient times, however, phoneticians have made the best use of the information they had access to, employing careful listening, measuring, modeling, and notation. In addition, more sophisticated devices have been developed within the past decades – devices such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), sonography, and digital acoustic analysis. Figure 1.1 shows some pictures of the vocal tract as seen by these devices.
通过这些辅助工具,我们对人类如何发出和听到语音有了哪些了解?
With these aids, what have we learned about how humans make and hear speech sounds?
基本上,声音就是振动的空气。说话意味着使用声道(肺、气管、喉、嘴和鼻)使空气流动和振动,然后以不同的方式塑造这种运动。图 1.2显示了声道上部的示意图。
Basically, sound is vibrating air. Speaking means using your vocal tract (lungs, trachea, larynx, mouth, and nose) to get air moving and vibrating, and then shaping that movement in different ways. Figure 1.2 shows a diagram of the upper parts of the vocal tract.
大多数语音都是通过肺部的空气发出的;因此,说话从呼吸开始。要开始说话,你需要拉低你的横膈膜,是将胸腔与胃分开的一块大肌肉。它使肺部扩张,从而吸入空气。然后横膈膜放松,肋骨周围的肌肉收缩,慢慢地挤压肺部,迫使空气排出并进入气管。
Most speech sounds are made with air exiting the lungs; therefore, speech begins with breath. To begin to speak, you pull down your diaphragm, the big muscle that separates your chest cavity from your stomach. This enlarges the lungs, which draws air in. Then the diaphragm relaxes and the muscles around the ribs contract, slowly squeezing the lungs and forcing the air out and up the windpipe, or trachea.
气管顶部有一小盒软骨,称为喉(“喉结”)。在喉部内部,两层软组织称为声带(有时称为“声带”),横跨气管顶部。如果声带保持在正确的位置且张力适当,从气管流出的空气会使声带非常快速地(每秒约 200 次)张开和闭合。你可以感觉到这种张开和闭合运动,即喉咙的振动。找到你的喉部(你应该能感觉到喉咙前部的喉结隆起),然后哼唱一段曲调。附着在喉部软骨上的肌肉使你能够调节声带的张力,从而调节振动频率并提高或降低音调。振动越快,音调越高。其他肌肉也使你可以将声带拉开,以免发生振动。
At the top of the trachea is a little box of cartilage, called the larynx (the “Adam’s apple”). Inside the larynx, two folds of soft tissue, called the vocal folds (sometimes called “vocal cords”), lie across the top of the trachea. If the vocal folds are held in the correct position with the correct tension, the air flowing out of the trachea causes them to flap open and closed very quickly (around 200 times per second). You can feel this opening and closing motion as vibration in your throat. Find your larynx (you should be able to feel the bump of the Adam’s apple at the front of your throat), and then hum a tune. Muscles attached to the cartilages of the larynx allow you to adjust the tension of the folds, thus adjusting the rate of vibration and raising or lowering the pitch. The faster the vibration, the higher the pitch of the voice. Other muscles also allow you to draw the folds apart so that no vibration occurs.
会厌位于喉部正上方,舌根处。会厌是一种肌肉结构,吞咽时会向下折叠在喉部上方,以防止食物在进入胃部之前进入肺部。喉部位于喉咙下方的风险会导致口腔后部出现开放区域,咽喉。咽喉使舌头可以自由地前后移动。其他哺乳动物,包括非人类灵长类动物,喉部位于口腔后部高处,与鼻腔相连。由于没有咽喉,黑猩猩永远学不会说话。(这就是为什么试图教灵长类动物用语言交流的科学家改用基于手势的语言。)
Just above the larynx, at the base of the tongue, is the epiglottis. The epiglottis is a muscular structure that folds down over the larynx when you swallow to prevent food from going down into the lungs before it enters the passage to the stomach. The payoff for the risk of a larynx located low in the throat is an open area at the back of the mouth, the pharynx. The pharynx allows the tongue freedom for front and back movement. Other mammals, including nonhuman primates, have the larynx high up at the back of the mouth, connected to the nasal passages. Because they have no pharynx, chimps could never learn to talk. (This is why scientists who try to teach primates to communicate with language use gesture-based languages instead.)
口腔内部有许多不同的结构——主动发声器官和被动发声器官——当空气通过声道时,我们用它来塑造语音。主动发声器官向被动发声器官移动,以收缩和塑造从肺部流出的空气。主动发声器官包括嘴唇,可以张开或闭合、撅起或张开,以及舌头。我们通常看到的是小小的粉红色舌尖,但实际上舌头是一大块相互连接的肌肉,充满口腔底部。虽然舌头没有骨头或软骨,但舌头的不同部分可以相当独立地移动。舌前部(包括舌尖和舌叶,从舌尖向后延伸几厘米)、舌体(舌头的主要部分,也称为舌背)和舌根(舌头的最低部分,位于咽喉后部)被认为是独立的活动发声器官。
Inside the mouth itself, there are many different structures – active articulators and passive articulators – that we use to shape speech sounds as the air passes through the vocal tract. The active articulators move toward the passive articulators in order to constrict and shape the air that is moving out from the lungs. Active articulators include the lips, which can be opened or closed, pursed or spread, and the tongue. What we usually see of the tongue is the small, pink tip, but it is actually a large mass of interconnected muscles that fills the floor of the mouth. Although the tongue has no bones or cartilage, different parts of the tongue can move fairly independently. The tongue front (including the tongue tip and the tongue blade, which extends a few centimeters back from the tip), the tongue body (the main mass of the tongue, also known as the dorsum), and the tongue root (the lowest part of the tongue, back in the pharynx), are considered separate active articulators.
被动发声器官位于声道的顶部。从上牙后面开始,用舌头沿着嘴的顶部移动。你首先会碰到牙槽嵴,牙齿后面的骨质隆起。牙槽后区呈拱形从牙槽嵴向硬腭,即口腔的顶部。如果你把舌头往嘴里卷得很远,你可以感觉到硬腭的骨结构让位于更软的组织,也就是所谓的软腭,或软腭。软腭是一种肌肉结构,它调节软腭口,即位于口腔后部的开口,连接口腔和鼻子。当软腭降低时,例如在呼吸时以及在发出 [m] 和 [n] 等声音时,软腭口打开,空气在鼻子和肺部之间自由流动。(将声音符号写在方括号内是一种语音惯例。有关语音书写的更多信息,请参阅以下部分。)当软腭升高时,例如在发出大多数语音时,鼻子的开口会关闭,所有气流都会通过口腔。软腭的最末端是悬雍垂,当你张大嘴巴说“啊。”
The passive articulators lie along the top of the vocal tract. Run your tongue along the top of your mouth beginning behind your upper teeth. You will first encounter the alveolar ridge, the bony rise just behind your teeth. The postalveolar region arches from the alveolar ridge toward the hard palate, the roof of the mouth. If you curl your tongue very far back in your mouth, you can feel that the bony structure of the hard palate gives way to softer tissue, which is known as the soft palate, or velum. The velum is a muscular structure that regulates the velar port, the opening in the back of the mouth that connects the mouth and nose. When the velum is lowered, as it is for breathing and for some sounds such as [m] and [n], the port is open and air flows freely between the nose and lungs. (It’s a phonetic convention to write the symbols for sounds within square brackets. See the following sections for more on phonetic writing.) When the velum is raised, as it is for most speech sounds, the opening to the nose is closed off and all the airstream is directed through the mouth. At the very end of the velum is the uvula, the little pink pendulum you can see hanging down in the back of your mouth when you open wide and say “ah.”
说话涉及以不同方式使用声道结构来控制和塑造流动的空气。我们可以想象说话者通过“选择”使用哪些主动和被动发音器官以及如何进行不同的收缩来产生正确的组合。这些选择不是有意识的;它们是经过长期练习而自动产生的,就像走路或伸手的肌肉动作一样。当你伸手去拿一杯咖啡时,你不会对自己说:“好的,现在收缩肱三头肌,放松肱二头肌”等。相反,你会不假思索地选择一个目标,比如“手指握拳”,然后你长期练习的动作就会执行目标导向的动作。说话也是一样。说话的动作是有目标导向的手势。每个声音都由一组发音目标组成,这些目标将使声道处于正确的位置,从而发出你想要发出的声音。像“发出 [m]”这样的总体目标可以分解为一组子部分:“闭上嘴唇”、“打开软腭”、“使声带振动”。这些子程序可以以不同的方式重新组合以发出不同的声音,就像一组乐高积木可以根据它们的组合方式建造一座城堡或一艘船。
Speaking involves using the structures of the vocal tract in different ways to control and shape moving air. We can think of the speaker producing the right combinations by making “choices” about which active and passive articulators to use and about how different constrictions will be made. These choices are not conscious; they are automated from long practice, just like the muscular routines of walking or reaching. When you reach for a cup of coffee, you don’t say to yourself, “OK, now contract the tricep, relax the bicep,” etc. Instead, without much conscious thought you select a goal, such as “fingers to mug,” and your long-practiced routines of motion execute the goal-directed movement. Speech works the same way. The movements of speech are goal-directed gestures. Each sound is comprised of a set of articulatory goals that will get the vocal tract in the right positions to make the sound you wish to make. An overall goal like “make an [m]” can be broken down into a set of subcomponents: “Close the lips,” “open the velum,” “make the vocal folds vibrate.” These subroutines can be recombined in different ways to make different sounds, like a set of Lego blocks that can build a castle or a boat depending on the way they’re put together.
第一个选择是气流机制:扬声器首先如何让空气流动?通常的选择是肺音呼气– 即空气从肺部呼出。世界上大多数语言使用的大多数声音都是肺音呼气。但是,也可以通过其他方式使空气流动,例如上下移动喉部,或者用舌头顶住上颚弹出小气囊,就像咔哒声一样。(咔哒声包括我们在英语中写的tsk tsk或tut tut这样的表达,但在南非的一些语言中,这些声音被纳入到语音流中,成为英语中的常规辅音 [p] 或 [t]。)本章的其余部分仅讨论肺部呼气的声音。
The first choice is that of airstream mechanism: how will the speaker get the air moving in the first place? The usual choice is pulmonic egressive – that is, air moving out from the lungs. Most sounds used by most of the world’s languages are pulmonic egressive. However, it is also possible to get air moving in other ways, such as by moving the larynx up or down, or by popping little pockets of air made with the tongue against the roof of the mouth, as in clicks. (Clicks include the expression we write in English as tsk tsk or tut tut, but in some languages of southern Africa sounds such as these are incorporated into the stream of speech as regular consonants like [p] or [t] in English.) The rest of this chapter discusses only sounds that are pulmonic egressive.
第二个选择是如何处理声带。声带振动发出的声音是浊音;声带不振动发出的声音是清音。如果你把手指放在喉部并发出持续的 [z] 音,你应该能够感觉到振动或浊音。如果你切换到 [s],即清音,振动就会停止。对于某些音,比如pop中的首字母 [p] ,声带会分开得足够远足够长,让额外的“一股气流”在 [p] 结尾时从嘴里出来。这叫做送气。当你发pop或pill时,如果你将指尖放在嘴唇前一英寸左右,你就能感觉到额外的气流被释放。送气可以用上标h表示:[p h ]。
The second choice is what to do with the vocal folds. Sounds produced with vocal fold vibration are voiced; sounds produced without vocal fold vibration are voiceless. If you place your finger on your larynx and produce a sustained [z], you should be able to feel the vibration, or voicing. If you switch to [s], a voiceless sound, the vibration ceases. For some sounds, as in the initial [p] in pop, the vocal folds are held apart far enough and long enough to allow an extra “puff of air” to exit the mouth at the end of the [p]. This is called aspiration. You can feel the extra release of air if you hold your fingertips an inch or so in front of your lips as you say pop or pill. Aspiration can be indicated by a superscripted h: [ph].
除了决定如何处理喉部之外,说话者还必须决定软腭是否张开。如果软腭张开,空气就会流入鼻子,那么这个声音就是鼻音(如 [m])。如果软腭闭合,那么这个声音就是口音。
Besides deciding what to do with the larynx, the speaker must decide whether the velum will be open or not. If the velum is open, so that air flows into the nose, the sound is nasal (like [m]). If the velum is closed, the sound is oral.
最后,说话者必须决定使用哪个主动发声器官来做出收缩(嘴唇、舌前、舌体、舌根),以及在哪里做出收缩(发音部位)以及将进行何种收缩 (发音方式)。以下各节将讨论各种发音部位;我们首先讨论各种发音方式。
Finally, the speaker must decide which active articulator will be used to make a constriction (lips, tongue front, tongue body, tongue root), where the constriction will be made (the place of articulation), and what sort of constriction will be made (the manner of articulation). The various places of articulation are discussed in following sections; we turn first to the various manners of articulation.
发音方式包括:塞音、摩擦音、塞擦音、近音和元音。
The manners of articulation include: stop, fricative, affricate, approximant, and vowel.
如果主动和被动发声器官结合在一起,形成一个完全闭合的状态,这样气流从口腔中完全被切断,发声的方式就是塞音。英语中的 [p]、[t] 和 [k] 音是塞音。非常缓慢地说出单词poppa,注意在单词中间的 [p] 时,嘴巴完全闭合,没有空气从嘴里出来。您甚至可能感觉到嘴唇后面有压力,因为空气继续从肺部流出,无处可去。当嘴唇张开时,这种压力会随着轻微的砰砰声或爆裂声而释放。[m] 音是鼻塞音。即使软腭张开,空气自由地从鼻子流出,这样您就可以在发出 [m] 音的同时哼曲调,但发音方式仍然是塞音,因为嘴唇完全闭合,就像 [p] 一样。(试着在哼曲调时捏住鼻子一会儿,看看会发生什么。)
If the active and passive articulators are brought together to make a complete closure, so that airflow out of the mouth is completely cut off, the manner of articulation is a stop. The sounds [p], [t], and [k] in English are stops. Say the word poppa very slowly, and note that there is complete silence, with no air exiting the mouth, while the lips are closed for [p] in the middle of the word. You may even feel pressure building up behind the lips, as air continues flowing from the lungs and has nowhere to go. This pressure is released with a slight pop, or burst, when the lips are opened. The sound [m] is a nasal stop. Even though the velum is open and air flows freely out of the nose, so that you can hum a tune while producing an [m] sound, the manner of articulation is still a stop, because the lips are completely closed, as they were for [p]. (Try pinching your nose closed for a moment while you’re humming a tune, and see what happens.)
如果发音器官靠得很近但没有完全闭合,那么在它们之间强制流动的气流就会变得湍急和嘈杂,发音方式就是摩擦音。[s]、[z]、[f] 和 [v] 是摩擦音。塞擦音将一系列塞音和擦音组合成一个音。英语中通常写为 ch 的是塞擦音。试着尽可能慢地achoo发音a和oo之间的舌头运动。首先,将舌头前部闭合在齿槽脊处或齿槽脊后方,然后降低舌尖,让空气通过稍靠后、位于舌叶和齿槽后区域之间的狭窄收缩处排出。
If the articulators are brought close together but not closed completely, so that the stream of air that is forced between them becomes turbulent and noisy, the manner of articulation is a fricative. The sounds [s], [z], [f], and [v] are fricatives. Affricates combine a sequence of stop plus fricative in a single sound. The sound usually written ch in English is an affricate. Try saying the word achoo as slowly as possible, paying attention to the movement of the tongue between the a and oo sounds. You first make a closure with the tongue front at or just behind the alveolar ridge, and then lower the tongue tip to let the air out through a narrow constriction slightly further back, between the tongue blade and postalveolar region.
如果主动发音器官移动以缩小声道,但又不至于产生摩擦音,那么发音方式就是近音。滑音,例如单词yell和well开头的音,是近音,就像英语中的 [l] 和 [r] 一样。世界上各种语言的llaterals,因为空气从舌头两侧流出。试着拉长单词lateral。现在,不要移动舌头,深吸一口气。你会感觉到空气从舌头两侧流动。r音被称为rhotics。世界各国语言的rhotics 音种类繁多,包括舌头快速敲击齿龈的音、舌头因气流而振动的颤音,以及美式英语 [r] 的非常奇怪的形状,其中舌体高高地聚拢,舌尖可能向上或向后卷曲。(非英语母语人士很难发出这个音,这并不奇怪。)元音是最开放的发音方式。不同的元音是通过上下、前后移动舌体以及嘴唇的圆润或张开而发出的。然而,在发所有元音时,声道都相对开放,空气可以自由流出。口塞音、摩擦音和塞擦音一起形成一类称为阻塞音,因为它们通过阻碍声道中的气流来产生声音,当封闭被释放时会发出一阵声音,当空气通过狭窄的收缩时会发出嘶嘶声。鼻塞音、近音和元音(任何不是阻塞音的音)形成一类声音,称为响音。它们不是通过阻碍气流而是通过让空气产生共振来发出可听见的声音。响音几乎总是有声的。声带的振动会导致声道内的空气振动。如果振动足够强,就会产生可听见的声音,就像铃声一样。不同的声道形状(我们通过移动活跃的发声器官来控制)会产生不同的振动模式,我们听到的是不同的声音(更多内容见下文)。通过在开放的声道中移动大量空气,可以产生无声的响音。像苗语和缅甸语使用清鼻音。仔细听,你会听到英语单词play中的 [l]也是无声。
If the active articulator moves to narrow the vocal tract, but not so much that fricative noise is created, the manner of articulation is an approximant. Glides, such as the sounds at the beginning of the words yell and well, are approximants, as are [l] and [r] in English. The l-sounds of the languages of the world are called laterals, because air flows out over the sides of the tongue. Try drawing out the initial sound in the word lateral. Now, without moving your tongue, take a deep breath in and out. You’ll feel the air moving over the sides of the tongue. The r-sounds are called rhotics. The rhotic sounds of the languages of the world are quite varied, including quick taps of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, trills in which the tongue is set into vibration by air flowing over it, and the very odd shape of the American English [r], in which the body of the tongue is bunched up high and the tongue tip may be raised or curled backwards. (It is no surprise that non-native speakers of English have trouble with this sound.) Vowels are the most open manner of articulation. Different vowel sounds are made by moving the tongue body up or down, front or back, and by rounding or spreading the lips. During all vowel sounds, however, the vocal tract is relatively wide open, and air flows out freely. Oral stops, fricatives, and affricates together form a class of sounds called obstruents, because they make noise by obstructing the airflow in the vocal tract, causing a burst of sound as a closure is released or a hissing sound as the air passes through a narrow constriction. Nasal stops, approximants, and vowels (anything that’s not an obstruent) form a class of sounds called sonorants. They make audible sounds not by obstructing the airflow, but by letting the air resonate. Sonorant sounds are almost always voiced. The vibration of the vocal folds causes the air inside the vocal tract to vibrate. If the vibration is strong enough, it produces an audible sound, like the ringing of a bell. Different vocal tract shapes (which we control by moving the active articulators) produce different patterns of vibration, which we hear as different sounds (more on this below). It is possible to produce voiceless sonorants, by moving a large volume of air through the open vocal tract. Languages like Hmong and Burmese use voiceless nasals. Listen carefully, and you’ll hear that the [l] in an English word like play is also voiceless.
在讨论英语和其他语言中使用的不同发音位置之前,我们必须考虑如何写下不同的声音。描述性短语,如“ yell单词开头的声音”或“ achoo中间的声音”,都很麻烦。我们需要一个语音字母表。用语音字母表写下声音称为音标。
Before we discuss the different places of articulation used in English and other languages, we have to consider how to write down different sounds. Descriptive phrases like “the sound at the beginning of the word yell” or “in the middle of achoo” are cumbersome. We need a phonetic alphabet. Writing down sounds using a phonetic alphabet is called phonetic transcription.
1888 年,国际语音协会(总部设在巴黎)致力于解决如何准确描述其成员在努力描述世界上所有的语言。他们根据以下两个原则 发布了新字母表——国际音标( IPA ) 的符号:
In 1888, the International Phonetic Association (based in Paris) tackled the problem of how to precisely describe any sound the members might encounter in their efforts to describe all the languages of the world. They published symbols for a new alphabet, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), based on two principles:
考虑一下英语拼写是如何不满足这两个原则的。我们当然没有字母来表示南非的喀拉喀斯声,也没有喉咙深处发出的声音。阿拉伯语。一个声音/一个符号的对应关系经常被破坏。字母c有多少种发音方式?(考虑每个恶性循环。)字母x代表两个声音的序列,[k] 后跟 [s](box与locks押韵),而字母sh序列代表单个声音(舌叶抵住后齿龈区发出的摩擦音)。
Consider how English spelling falls short on these two principles. We certainly don’t have letters for the clicks of southern Africa or the sounds made in the back of the throat in Arabic. And the one sound/one symbol correspondence is constantly violated. How many ways can you pronounce the letter c? (Consider each vicious circle.) The letter x stands for a sequence of two sounds, [k] followed by [s] (box rhymes with locks), while the sequence of letters sh stands for a single sound (a fricative made with the tongue blade against the postalveolar region).
图 1.4显示了本章讨论的所有声音的 IPA 符号,以及更多内容。
Figure 1.4 shows the IPA symbols for all the sounds discussed in this chapter, and more.
在 IPA 辅音中图表中,发音部位写在顶部,发音方式写在侧面,因此每个单元格都表示特定方式和部位的组合。灰色阴影单元格是物理上不可能的组合。如果单元格中有两个符号,则左侧的符号为无声符号,右侧的符号为有声符号。
In an IPA consonant chart, place of articulation is written across the top, and manner of articulation is written down the side, so that each cell indicates a combination of a specific manner and place. Cells that are shaded gray are physically impossible combinations. If there are two symbols in a cell, the one on the left is voiceless, the one on the right is voiced.
学习 IPA 音标的一个好起点是表 1.1中列出的英语辅音符号,以及出现这些声音的示例单词。虽然不是全部,但许多符号都是熟悉的。当您学习不同位置和发音方式的定义时,您应该能够将它们结合起来,找出 IPA 表中不熟悉符号的发音。
A good place to start learning IPA transcription is with the symbols for the consonants of English, which are given in Table 1.1, along with example words in which the sounds occur. Many, though not all, of the symbols will be familiar. As you learn the definitions of the different places and manners of articulation, you should be able to combine them to figure out the pronunciations of unfamiliar symbols in the IPA chart.
| 最初的 | 最终的 | 内侧 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 页 | 拍 | 馅饼 | 笔 | 别针 | 鞭 | 上 |
| b | 蝙蝠 | 买 | 本 | 垃圾桶 | 围兜 | 橡皮 |
| 米 | 垫 | 我的 | 男性 | 奴才 | 心血来潮 | 夏天 |
| f | 胖的 | 斗争 | 分 | 鳍 | 嗅闻 | 遭受 |
| 五 | 增值税 | 争夺 | 小贩 | 优质的 | 居住 | 曾经 |
| θ | 大腿 | 薄的 | 和 | 埃塞尔 | ||
| ð | 那 | 你的 | 然后 | 洗澡 | 天气 | |
| 吨 | 達 | 领带 | 十 | 锡 | 智慧 | 重新装备 |
| d | 数据 | 染料 | 巢穴 | 喧闹 | 中 | 重做 |
| n | 纳特 | 夜晚 | 忍者 | 赢 | 更新 | |
| s | 萨特 | 叹 | 传感器 | 罪 | 错过 | 压榨机 |
| 是 | 扎普 | 禅 | 拉链 | 威兹 | 蜂鸣器 | |
| 升 | 侧 | 说谎 | 扁豆 | 唇 | 将要 | 填料 |
| r | 鼠 | 黑麦 | 租 | 撕开 | 在哪里 | 恐怖 |
| ʃ | 窝棚 | 害羞的 | 壳 | 船 | 希望 | 压力 |
| ʒ | 浅褐色的 | 措施 | ||||
| ʧ | 聊天 | 柴 | 查看 | 芯片 | 巫婆 | 蚀刻机 |
| ʤ | 杰克 | 巨大的 | 性别 | 杜松子酒 | 边缘 | 边缘器 |
| 钾 | 猫 | 风筝 | 肯 | 亲属 | 灯芯 | 清障车 |
| ɡ | 差距 | 家伙 | 假发 | 劫匪 | ||
| ŋ | 翼 | 歌手 | ||||
| 时长 | 帽子 | 高的 | 母鸡 | 时髦的 | 前方 | |
| 瓦 | 重击 | 为什么 | 什么时候 | 赢 | 离开 | |
| 杰 | 牦牛 | 日元 | 叶 | |||
当你查看表 1.1中的示例单词时,你会注意到并非所有单元格都已填满。其中一些空白是偶然的:例如,英语恰好没有单词nen ,尽管它有类似的单词nine和net。其他空白是系统性的:例如,英语中没有以 [h] 结尾的单词。(许多单词以字母 h结尾,但我们关心的是声音,而不是拼写。)系统性空白将在后面讨论以下。
As you look through the example words in Table 1.1, you’ll notice that not all of the cells are filled. Some of these gaps are accidental: English just doesn’t happen to have a word nen, for example, though it has similar words like nine and net. Other gaps are systematic: no word in English ends with the sound [h], for example. (Plenty of words end with the letter h, but we are concerned with sound, not spelling.) Systematic gaps will be discussed further below.
我们将按照主动发音器官和发音部位来组织对辅音的讨论。一般来说,每个发音器官可以移动到多个发音部位,如表 1.2所示。
We will organize our discussion of the consonants by active articulator and place of articulation. Generally, each articulator can move to more than one place of articulation, as shown in Table 1.2.
| 主动咬合器 | 被动咬合器 | 发音部位 |
|---|---|---|
| 下唇 | 上唇 | 双唇 |
| 上牙 | 唇齿 | |
| 舌尖或舌叶 | 上牙 | 牙科 |
| 牙槽嵴 | 肺泡 | |
| 牙槽后区 | 卷舌音(尖端) | |
| 牙槽后区 | 后齿槽(叶片) | |
| 硬腭 | 腭(刃) | |
| 舌体 | 硬腭 | 腭 |
| 软腭 | 软腭 | |
| 小舌 | 悬雍垂 | |
| 舌根 | 咽壁 | 咽部 |
| 喉 | 喉 |
下唇可以在两个不同的地方收缩。如果下唇和上唇合在一起,声音是双唇音。[p]、[b] 和 [m] 是双唇音。请注意,[p] 是清音,而 [b] 和 [m] 是浊音。或者,下唇可以与上牙接触,产生唇齿音。[f] 和 [v] 是唇齿音。日语有双唇音擦音(IPA [ ϕ ] 而不是 [f])。此音与日语中futon的发音一样,是通过撅起嘴唇吹气发出的,与吹灭蜡烛的动作相同。
The lower lip can make constrictions at two different places. If the lower and upper lip come together, the sound is bilabial. The sounds [p], [b], and [m] are bilabials. Note that [p] is voiceless and [b] and [m] are voiced. Alternatively, the lower lip can make contact with the upper teeth to produce a labiodental sound. [f] and [v] are labiodentals. Japanese has a bilabial fricative (IPA [ϕ] instead of [f]). This sound, as in the native Japanese pronunciation of futon, is made by blowing through pursed lips, the same motion as blowing out a candle.
下唇收缩的部位相当有限。舌前部是活动发音器官中最灵活的,至少可以移动到四个不同的发音部位。舌尖向前移动到上齿,发出“thin”和“”的音。这些齿擦音写作 [θ] (清音) 和 [ð] (浊音)。
The lower lip is rather limited in the places at which it can make a constriction. The tongue front is the most versatile of the active articulators, moving to at least four different places of articulation. The tongue tip moves forward to the upper teeth for the sounds at the beginning of thin and then. These dental fricatives are written [θ] (voiceless) and [ð] (voiced).
英语中 [t]、[d]、[n] 和 [l] 的发音都是舌尖位于齿龈处,齿龈发音部位。摩擦音 [s] 和 [z] 也是齿龈发音。对于这些摩擦音,舌头在齿龈脊下形成一个狭窄的凹槽,就像一个喷口,将一股气流喷向牙齿,产生高音调的嘶嘶声。虽然这些摩擦音的发音部位是齿龈,但前牙对于产生正确的高音调嘶嘶声是必不可少的,正如所有孩子在失去乳牙时发现的那样。
The English sounds [t], [d], [n], and [l] are made with the tongue tip at the alveolar ridge, the alveolar place of articulation. The fricatives [s] and [z] are also alveolar. For these fricatives the tongue forms a narrow groove under the alveolar ridge like a spout that shoots a stream of air against the teeth, producing a high-pitched hissing sound. Though the place of articulation for these fricatives is alveolar, the front teeth are necessary to create the proper high-pitched hiss, as all children discover when they lose their baby teeth.
擦音 [ ʃ ] 和 [ ʒ ](如pressure和measure中间的音)的发音位置更靠后,舌叶在 后齿龈发音处收缩。(有趣的是,[ ʒ ] 在英语中不出现在首位,除非明显借用了 法语,如流派。)church和judge中的塞擦音也是后齿龈音。这些音的 IPA 符号为 [ ʧ ] 和 [ ʤ ]:两个符号用于表示塞音加摩擦音,用连字符连接。(在其他转录系统中在语言学书籍中,[ ʃ ]、[ ʒ ]、[ ʧ ] 和 [ ʤ ]常用带音节的符号书写:[ š ]、[ ž ]、[ č ]、[ ǰ ]。)英语没有后齿龈塞音或鼻音,但其他语言也有鼻音(例如法语agneau '羔羊',西班牙语año ‘年’,都发音为 [a ɲ o],但重音不同之处)。
The fricatives [ʃ] and [ʒ] (as in the middle of pressure and measure) are made further back, with the blade of the tongue making a constriction at the postalveolar place of articulation. (Interestingly, [ʒ] doesn’t occur in initial position in English, except in obvious borrowings from French, such as genre.) The affricates in church and judge are also postalveolar. The IPA symbols for these sounds are [ʧ] and [ʤ]: two symbols are used for the combination of stop plus fricative, linked by a ligature. (In other transcription systems commonly used in linguistics books, [ʃ], [ʒ], [ʧ], and [ʤ] are written with hatchecks: [š], [ž], [č], [ǰ].) English doesn’t have any postalveolar stops or nasals, though other languages do (for example, French agneau ‘lamb’, and Spanish año ‘year,’ both pronounced [aɲo], though with a stress difference).
通常用舌叶来形成齿龈后缩窄。但是,舌尖也可以向后卷曲,使该区域缩窄。如果舌尖向后卷曲,则该音称为回音。(这些声音的 IPA 符号在符号下方有一个小钩,让人联想到舌头的卷曲。)对于一些(但不是全部)美国语使用者来说,[r] 是回音近音。你能确定你自己的舌尖在单词road?英语中没有其他回音,尽管其他语言,尤其是印地语和其他印度语言,都有一套完整的回音塞音、擦音和鼻音。英语中印度口音的一个明显标志是用回音塞音代替英语的齿龈音。
Usually the blade of the tongue is used to make a postalveolar constriction. It is also possible, however, for the tip of the tongue to curl back to make a constriction in this area. If the tip of the tongue curls back, the sound is called retroflex. (The IPA symbols for these sounds have a little hook under the symbol, recalling the curling back of the tongue.) For some (but not all) American speakers, [r] is a retroflex approximant. Can you determine whether your own tongue tip curls back in a word like road? There are no other retroflex sounds in English, though other languages, notably Hindi and other languages of India, have a full set of retroflex stops, fricatives, and nasals. A telltale sign of an Indian accent in English is substituting retroflex stops for English alveolars.
英语单词you和yacht的开头发音是腭音(确切地说是腭滑音)。整个中段舌体(包括舌叶和舌体)被向上推,以缩小舌头和硬腭之间的空间。腭滑音的 IPA 符号是 [j]。(想想斯堪的纳维亚语ja。)英语没有其他腭音,但它们并不难发音。从 [j](如you)开始,然后将其清音。结果是清音腭擦音,例如用于德语单词,例如ich [iç],意思是“我”。
The sound at the beginning of the English words you and yacht is palatal (a palatal glide, to be exact). The whole middle section of the tongue, including blade and body, is pushed straight up to narrow the space between the tongue and hard palate. The IPA symbol for a palatal glide is [j]. (Think Scandinavian ja.) English doesn’t have any other palatal sounds, but they’re not hard to make. Start with [j] (as in you), and then make it voiceless. The result is a voiceless palatal fricative, used for example in German words such as ich [iç], meaning ‘I’.
继续向声道后方移动,下一个发音部位是软腭音,此时舌体向上移动,紧贴口腔后部高处的软腭。英语中的 [k] 和 [g] 是软腭塞音。在英语中,字母ng的序列,例如在song或ring的末尾,通常表示软腭鼻音。在单词song中,不是发出一连串的腭鼻音后跟软腭塞音(ng),而是在与 [k] 或 [g] 相同的位置发出一个鼻音。(感受一下当你说单词king时你的舌头移动有多小。)软腭鼻音的 IPA 符号是 [ ŋ ]。与 [ ʒ ] 一样,英语只在单词末尾(song)或中间(songs )使用 [ ŋ ] ,从不在单词开头使用,不过通过练习,你可以学会发音如下单词泰语 [ ŋ a:] 'tusk' 或澳大利亚名字,如Ngaio 。Bach 这个名字末尾的德语发音是清音软腭擦音,[x]。要发这个音,先从 [k] 开始,然后稍微放松收缩,让少量湍流通过。
Moving further back in the vocal tract, the next place of articulation is velar, in which the tongue body moves up to make constriction against the velum, high in the back of the mouth. The English sounds [k] and [g] are velar stops. In English, the sequence of letters ng, as at the end of song or ring, usually indicate a velar nasal. In the word song, you don’t make a sequence of alveolar nasal followed by velar stop (n-g), but a single nasal sound at the same place as [k] or [g]. (Feel how little your tongue moves when you say the word king.) The IPA symbol for a velar nasal stop is [ŋ]. As with [ʒ], English uses [ŋ] only at the end of words (song) or in the middle (singer), never at the beginning, although with practice you can learn to pronounce words like Thai [ŋa:] ‘tusk’ or Australian names like Ngaio. The native German sound at the end of the name Bach is a voiceless velar fricative, [x]. To make this sound, begin with a [k], then loosen the constriction slightly, letting a little turbulent airflow pass through.
舌体还可以进一步收缩至小舌塞音的发音部位。要发出小舌塞音,先发 [k] 或 [g],然后将舌头向后移动几厘米。小舌塞音在许多美洲原住民语言中很常见,在阿拉伯语和希伯来语。卡塔尔国名的阿拉伯语发音以小舌塞音开始。喉咙深处也可以收缩,舌根向后移向咽壁。这些浊音和清音 在阿拉伯语和希伯来语中也发现 咽擦音。
The tongue body can also make constrictions further back, at the uvular place of articulation. To make a uvular stop, begin with a [k] or [g], then move the tongue a few centimeters back. Uvular stops are common in many Native American languages, as well as in Arabic and Hebrew. The native Arabic pronunciation of the country name Qatar begins with a uvular stop. Constrictions can also be made deep in the throat, with the tongue root moving back toward the pharyngeal wall. These voiced and voiceless pharyngeal fricatives are also found in Arabic and Hebrew.
最后,辅音可以用喉部作为唯一的发音器官来发音。[h] 音由气流通过张开的声带发出的声音组成,可以被认为是喉部 摩擦音。也可以将声带紧紧关闭,阻止喉部气流,喉塞音(IPA [ʔ])。这是英语的中间表达“啊哦”。如果你慢慢地发这个音,你可以感觉到喉咙收缩。在其他语言中,比如夏威夷语中,喉塞音用作常规辅音。在夏威夷这个词中,撇号代表喉塞音。喉塞音还代表某些英语单词中的某些 /t/ 音,但具体哪些单词受到影响取决于方言:对于许多美国人来说,button和mitten等单词有喉塞音;在伦敦部分地区,kitty和pretty有喉塞音停止。
Finally, consonants can be made with the larynx as the only articulator. The sound [h] consists of the noise of air rushing through the open vocal folds, and may be considered a laryngeal fricative. It is also possible to close the vocal folds up tight, stopping the airflow at the larynx, a glottal stop (IPA [ʔ]). This is the sound in the middle of the English expression uh-oh. If you pronounce this slowly, you can feel the constriction in the larynx. In other languages, like Hawai‘ian, the glottal stop is used as a regular consonant. In the word Hawai‘i the apostrophe stands for a glottal stop. A glottal stop also stands in for certain /t/ sounds in some English words, though exactly which words are affected depends on the dialect: for many Americans, words like button and mitten have glottal stops; in parts of London kitty and pretty have glottal stops.
还有一个英语辅音需要讨论:滑音 [w],如wear中的滑音。这个音结合了软腭发音部位声道的收窄 嘴唇圆润。因此,这是双发音,即唇腭滑音。虽然在发音部位的不同位置进行双发音并不难(考虑到主动发音器官的独立性),但耳朵很难区分,因此除唇腭滑音之外的双发音很少见。
One English consonant remains to be discussed: the glide [w], as in wear. This sound combines a narrowing of the vocal tract at the velar place of articulation with rounding of the lips. It is thus a double articulation, a labiovelar glide. While double articulations at various places of articulation are not hard to make (given the independence of the active articulators), they can be hard for the ear to distinguish, so double articulations other than labiovelars are rare.
总结一下,有 11 个常见的发音部位——双唇音、唇齿音、齿音、齿龈音、后齿龈音、卷舌音、腭音、软腭音、小舌音、咽音和喉音——尽管没有一种语言会用所有的发音部位来发辅音。 关节。
In summary, there are eleven common places of articulation – bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, postalveolar, retroflex, palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, and laryngeal – though no single language makes consonants using all of the places of articulation.
元音比辅音更难描述。根据定义,元音有一个开放的声道,因此舌头实际上不会在任何特定位置接触声道的上表面,而发音部位这个术语实际上并不是元音的发音方式并不恰当。相反,不同的元音是根据舌体和嘴唇的运动方式来描述的。语言学家根据舌体的高度、舌体是向嘴的前部还是后部聚拢以及嘴唇是否圆润来对元音进行分类。
Vowels are harder to describe than consonants. By definition, vowels have an open vocal tract, so the tongue doesn’t actually touch the upper surface of the vocal tract at any particular place and the term place of articulation isn’t really appropriate. Instead, different vowels are described in terms of the ways in which the tongue body and lips move. Linguists classify vowels by the height of the tongue body, whether it is bunched toward the front or back of the mouth, and whether the lips are rounded.
如果描述一般的元音系统是一项艰巨的任务,那么描述英语的元音就更是如此。一个原因是因为英语的元音数量很多。一种语言最常见的元音数量是五个。尽管英语作者只使用五个字母来编码他们的元音(旧系统的遗留),但英语使用了十几种不同的元音。另一个原因是,不同方言的元音数量和元音质量差异很大,远大于辅音的差异。例如,珀斯人发音的mate听起来很像(尽管不完全像)巴尔的摩人发音的might 。亚特兰大人发音的my听起来类似于波士顿人发音的mar ,以及西雅图人发音的ma。对于美国东海岸的大多数说话者来说,caught和cot这两个词有两个不同的元音;但对于西海岸的大多数说话者来说,这两个词的发音相同。
If describing vowel systems in general is a difficult task, describing the vowels of English is even more so. One reason is because there are a lot of them. The most common number of vowels for a language to have is five. Though English writers use just five letters to encode their vowels (relics of an older system), the English language uses more than a dozen different vowel sounds. Another reason is because the exact number of vowels and exact vowel quality differ from dialect to dialect, much more so than for the consonants. For example, the word mate as pronounced by a speaker from Perth sounds a lot (though not exactly) like the word might as pronounced by a speaker from Baltimore. The word my spoken by a native of Atlanta sounds similar to mar as pronounced in Boston, and ma as pronounced in Seattle. For most speakers on the East coast of the United States, the words caught and cot have two different vowel sounds; but for most speakers on the West coast, the two words are pronounced the same.
表 1.3列出了“通用美式英语”(GA)元音的 IPA 符号和示例词,GA 即美国中部地区或多或少使用的英语(“或多或少”是因为每种英语方言都有特定的地域特征,而纯正的“通用美式英语”的理想使用者并不存在)。在英国,BBC 播音员和学校教师所追求的“标准”方言被称为RP(即“标准发音”);通常是这种方言,而不是美式英语,更接近世界各地使用的多种英语版本,例如新加坡、南非和印度英语。(其他英语变体,如澳大利亚英语和苏格兰英语,有自己独特的系统。)本节列出了 GA 和 RP 元音之间的一些主要发音差异;请参阅本章末尾列出的参考资料以及第 9 章,了解有关英语的许多地区和国际变体的更多信息。
Table 1.3 gives the IPA symbols, with example words, for the vowels of “General American” (GA) English – that is, English as it is more or less spoken in the central United States (“more or less” since every dialect of English has particular regional characteristics, and the ideal speaker of pure “General American” doesn’t exist). In England, the “standard” dialect to which BBC announcers and school teachers aspire is known as RP (for “Received Pronunciation”); it is usually this dialect, rather than American, which is closer to the many versions of English spoken around the world, such as Singaporean, South African, and Indian English. (Other varieties, such as Australian and Scottish, have their own unique systems.) Some of the major pronunciation differences between GA and RP vowels are noted in this section; see the references listed at the end of this chapter, as well as Chapter 9, for more information on the many regional and international varieties of English.
| 我 | 珠子 | 钥匙 | 他 | |
| ɪ | 出价 | 成套工具 | ||
| 埃 | 巴德 | 凯特 | 嘿 | |
| ε | 床 | 番茄酱 | ||
| æ | 坏的 | 猫 | ||
| 你 | 嘘声 | 笨人 | WHO | |
| ʊ | 书 | 厨师 | ||
| o | 波德 | 外套 | 锄 | |
| ɔ | 波特 | 捕捉 | 山楂 | |
| 一个 | 身体 | 婴儿床 | 哈 | |
| ʌ | 芽 | 切 | ||
| ɝ | 鸟 | 简短 | 她 | |
| ɚ | 谋杀 [m ɝ d ɚ ] | |||
| ə | 关于 | rosa [roz ə z] | ||
| ɨ | 玫瑰 [roz ɨ z] | |||
| ʊ | 鞠躬 | 数数 | 如何 | |
| ɔɪ | 男生 | 腼腆 | 啊喂 | |
| ɪ | 等待 | 风筝 | 高的 |
图 1.5大致基于发音时舌头最高点的位置,绘制了(GA)英语元音的相对位置。元音空间在顶部比在底部大,因为靠近上颚的地方有更多的空间供舌头移动。(敏锐的读者会注意到图 1.4和1.5中元音符号的位置存在一些差异,特别是低元音和中央元音。这是因为 IPA 提供的符号比任何一种语言所需的符号都多得多。如果语言学家主要关心的是区分一种语言的单词所需的一组声音的一般描述(就像我们在这里一样),他/她通常会从 IPA 提供的符号中选择更熟悉的符号。)
Figure 1.5 charts the positions of (GA) English vowels relative to each other, based roughly on the position of the highest point of the tongue during that vowel. The vowel space is larger at the top than at the bottom, because there is more room for tongue movement closer to the palate. (The astute reader will notice some differences in exactly where the vowel symbols are placed in Figures 1.4 and 1.5, particularly for low and central vowels. This is because the IPA provides many more symbols than are needed in any one language. If a linguist is concerned primarily with a general description of the set of sounds that are needed to distinguish the words of a language (as we are here), he/she will usually choose the more familiar symbols from among those the IPA makes available.)
这我们用来区分不同元音的术语指的是发元音时舌头的最高点。高元音[i, ɪ , ɨ , u, ʊ ] 时舌体向上移动,发低元音[æ, a] 时,舌头在中间,发中元音[e,ɛ, o,ɔ,ʌ,ə] 时,舌头在嘴里向前移动。前元音[i,ɪ, e,ɛ, æ] 和后元音后元音[u,ʊ, o,ɔ, a]。元音 [ɨ,ʌ,ə] 位于中央。元音还因以下方面而不同:唇形圆润。在普通美式英语中,后元音 [u, ʊ , o, ɔ ] 是圆音,其他元音都是不圆音。在普通英语中, body等单词中的元音也是圆音:这种低、后、圆音的符号为 [ ɒ ]。此外,英语将其元音分为两组,紧张和松弛。紧元音 [i, e, o, u] 比松弛元音 [ ɪ,ɛ,ɔ,ʊ更长、稍高,发音时舌根僵硬程度更大。紧/松弛区别并不适用于低元音。这些描述性术语可以组合起来选出一个特定的元音:[ɪ] 是高、前、松弛、不圆音;[o] 是中、后、紧、圆音。
The terms we use to classify different vowels refer to the highest point of the tongue during the vowel. The tongue body moves up for the high vowels [i, ɪ, ɨ, u, ʊ], down for the low vowels [æ, a], and stays in the middle for the mid vowels [e, ɛ, o, ɔ, ʌ, ə]. The tongue moves forward in the mouth for the front vowels [i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ] and backward for the back vowels [u, ʊ, o, ɔ, a]. The vowels [ɨ, ʌ, ə] are central. Vowels also differ with respect to lip rounding. In General American English, the back vowels [u, ʊ, o, ɔ] are round, all other vowels are unround. In RP, the vowel in words like body is also round: the symbol for this low, back, round vowel is [ɒ]. In addition, English divides its vowels into two sets, tense and lax. The tense vowels [i, e, o, u] are longer, slightly higher, and produced with greater stiffening of the tongue root than their lax counterparts [ɪ, ɛ, ɔ, ʊ]. The tense/lax distinction doesn’t really apply to low vowels. These descriptive terms can be combined to pick out a specific vowel: [ɪ] is high, front, lax, unround; [o] is mid, back, tense, round.
只出现在短而非重读音节中的一组元音使用不同的符号。(参见下文关于重读的讨论。)中元音 [ ə ] 称为中元音,出现在aboutRosa’s的第二个音节。高音、中央的 [ɨroses的第二个音节中。
Distinct symbols are used for the set of vowels that occur only in short, unstressed syllables. (See the discussion of stress below.) The mid-central vowel [ə], called schwa, is heard in the first syllable of about and the second syllable of Rosa’s. The high, central [ɨ] occurs in the second syllable of roses.
到目前为止,我们已经了解了单个声音,但说话涉及将声音串联成更大的单元。影响大于单个音段的声音延伸的语音方面称为超音段。语音的超音段方面包括长度、音调、语调、音节结构和重音。由于语音的超音段方面涉及将声音组织成更大的单元,因此超音段的研究跨越了语音学(研究语音作为物理对象)和音系学(研究语言如何将声音组织成不同的模式)的领域。
Thus far, we have learned about individual sounds, but speaking involves stringing sounds together into larger units. Aspects of speech that influence stretches of sound larger than a single segment are called suprasegmentals. Suprasegmental aspects of speech include length, tone, intonation, syllable structure, and stress. Because suprasegmental aspects of speech involve the organization of sounds into larger units, the study of suprasegmentals straddles the domains of phonetics (the study of speech sounds as physical objects) and phonology (the study of how languages organize sounds into different patterns).
特别的注意 [r] 后面跟着英语元音的发音。英语方言可分为“ r满方言”(以 GA 为代表)和“ r去掉方言”(以 RP 为代表,但也包括澳大利亚、波士顿、纽约市和美国东南部的部分地区)。在r满方言中,[r] 发音跟在元音后面,因此例如bear发音为 [ber] 而park发音为 [p h ark]。但是 [r] 之前没有时态/松弛区别:在大多数r满方言中,Mary和merry等词之间没有对比。在fur、bird和burr等词中,舌头在元音中的位置与 [r] 相同:舌背向后并拢,舌尖抬起。 (也就是说,在“多刺的种子”中的burr和在“我很冷”中的brrrr之间实际上没有区别。)这个卷舌元音的符号在重读音节中是 [ ɝ ],在非重读音节中是 [ ɚ ],因此,例如,murder被转录为 [m ɝ d ɚ ]。在去掉r的方言中,元音后的 [r] 通常被中元音替换或删除,因此 bear是 [be ə ],park是 [p h ak]。 (在 RP 中,即使没有 [r], park也不同于pack [p h æk] 和pock [p h ɒ k]。这种对比在波士顿也很明显,那里的说话者使用独特的前低元音,但不发 [r],来表示“把车停在哈佛园”。)对于省略r的方言, bird和fur等词中的重读元音被转录为 [ ɜ ],这是一个介于 [ ɛ ] 和 [ ʌ ] 之间的元音。非重读er就写成 [ ə ],因此murder就是 [ ʼ m ɜ d ə ],pander和panda同音为 [ ʼ p h ænd ə ]。以下是更多 发音示例表 1.4显示了r富方言和r掉方言的中央元音。
Special note should be made of the pronunciation of English vowels followed by [r]. The dialects of English can be divided into those that are “r-ful” (typified by GA) versus those that are “r-dropping” (typified by RP, but also including Australia, Boston, New York City, and some areas of the southeastern US). In r-ful dialects, [r] is pronounced following a vowel, so that bear, for example, is pronounced [ber] and park is [phark]. The tense/lax distinction is lost before [r], however: there is no contrast, in most r-ful dialects, between words like Mary and merry. In words like fur, bird, and burr the position of the tongue in the vowel is the same as for [r]: tongue dorsum backed and bunched, tongue tip raised. (That is, there’s really no distinction between burr as in ‘prickly seed’ and brrrr as in ‘I’m cold.’) The symbol for this rhotic vowel is [ɝ] in stressed syllables and [ɚ] in unstressed, so that murder, for instance, is transcribed as [mɝdɚ]. In r-dropping dialects, postvocalic [r] is usually replaced by schwa or deleted, so that bear is [beə] and park is [phak]. (In RP, park, even without the [r], is distinct from both pack [phæk] and pock [phɒk]. The contrast is also maintained in Boston, where speakers use a distinctive fronted low vowel, but no [r], to “park the car in Harvard Yard.”) For r-dropping dialects, the stressed vowel in words like bird and fur is transcribed [ɜ], a vowel intermediate between [ɛ] and [ʌ]. Unstressed er is simply [ə], so that murder is [ʼmɜdə] and pander and panda are homophonous as [ʼphændə]. Further examples of the pronunciation of central vowels in both r-ful and r-dropping dialects are shown in Table 1.4.
最后,有些元音双元音,这意味着它们按顺序结合两个不同的位置。双元音 [aɪ],如通用美式英语high,从低中央位置移到高前。双元音 [aʊ],如通用美式英语how,从低中央位置移到高后部。而 [ɔɪ],如boy,从中后部移到高前部。英语的紧元音倾向于双元音化,也就是说,舌头在元音的过程中会稍微改变位置。元音 [e] 更准确地转录为 [eɪ],[o] 转录为 [oʊ](或 RP 中的 [əʊɪ] 和 [aʊ那么剧烈。更重要的是,“offglide” 在真正的双元音中是独特的,但在双元音化的元音中却不是。也就是说,将 [aɪ] 改为 [a] 或将 [aʊ] 改为 [a] 会形成不同的单词:[raɪd]riderod不是同一个词;而 [faʊnd]found与 [fand]fond。另一方面,将 [eɪ] 发音为 [e] 不会形成不同的单词:它只是让你听起来像是西班牙口音。
Finally, some vowels are diphthongs, which means that they combine two different positions in sequence. The diphthong [aɪ], as in General American high, moves from a low central position to high front. The diphthong [aʊ], as in General American how, moves from low central to high back. And [ɔɪ], as in boy, moves from mid back to high front. The tense vowels of English tend to be diphthongized, that is, the tongue changes position slightly over the course of the vowel. The vowel [e] is more exactly transcribed as [eɪ], and [o] as [oʊ] (or [əʊ] in RP). The change in position is not nearly as drastic as in the true diphthongs [aɪ] and [aʊ], however. More importantly, the “offglide” is distinctive in a true diphthong, but not in a vowel that is diphthongized. That is, changing [aɪ] to [a] or [aʊ] to [a] makes a different word: [raɪd] ride is not the same word as [rad] rod; and [faʊnd] found is different from [fand] fond. On the other hand, pronouncing [eɪ] as [e] doesn’t make a different word: it just makes you sound like you have a Spanish accent.
如上所述,在 GA 英语中,所有非低后元音都是圆音,所有低元音和前元音都是不圆音的。以这种方式结合唇部和舌头的位置,耳朵可以更容易区分不同的元音。任何至少有三个元音的语言都会有不圆音的前元音和圆音的后元音。有些语言(如法语、荷兰语和德语)也有前圆元音,而其他语言(如日语和韩语)也有不圆音的后元音。在语言学中,当一个声音不寻常或难以听到或说出时,我们说这个声音是标记。更简单、更常见的声音没有标记。例如,前圆元音和清浊音有标记。前不圆元音和浊浊音没有标记。如果一种语言使用声音的标记版本,它也使用未标记版本。
As mentioned above, in GA English, all the nonlow back vowels are round, and all the low vowels and front vowels are unround. Combining lip and tongue position in this way makes it easier for the ear to distinguish the different vowel sounds. Any language that has at least three vowels will have front vowels that are unround and back vowels that are round. Some languages (such as French, Dutch, and German) also have front round vowels, and others (such as Japanese and Korean) also have back unround vowels. In linguistics, when a sound is unusual or difficult to hear or to say, we say that that sound is marked. The easier, more common sound is unmarked. Front round vowels and voiceless sonorants, for example, are marked. Front unround vowels and voiced sonorants are unmarked. If a language uses the marked version of a sound, it also uses the unmarked version.
入门语言学教科书通常会通过强调发音位置和发音方式的作用来简化音系学,但您会发现其中涉及的选择要多得多。说话者控制气流机制、浊音和鼻音,以及发音位置和发音方式。每个声音都由较小的成分组成,这些成分可以以不同的方式组合成其他声音,并且每个成分都提供(通常是二元的)对立:浊音或清音、鼻音或口音、开音或闭音、前音或后音等。英语使用者通常会受到其字母书写系统的偏见;他们会自动将每个声音视为一个字母——一个独立的原子单位,与其他每个字母同等相关或不相关,因此 [p] 和 [b] 的关系并不比 [g] 和 [s] 更密切或更遥远。但声音是由较低级别的声道选择构成的,您可以通过切换每个选择的参数(浊音到清音、塞音到摩擦音等)将一个声音变成另一个声音。例如,不要将“浊音”仅仅看作描述声音的形容词,而要将其看作一个参数(一个选择、一个构建块、一个特定的声道配置),该参数与其他参数相结合,形成声音。代表给定声音的音标不是声音本身,而是一组选择的“覆盖符号”。这也意味着语言的语音是相关的音系之间的差异在很多方面都存在;有些声音集只因改变一个参数而不同,而另一些声音集则因设置多个参数而不同。我们将在音系学部分发现,正是这些参数(音系声音或一组声音的显著特征(而非单个声音或符号本身),这些特征在描述语言中的声音模式时很重要。系统。
Introductory linguistics textbooks often simplify phonology by emphasizing the role of place and manner of articulation in making sounds, but you can see that there are many more choices involved. Speakers control the airstream mechanism, voicing, and nasality as well as the place and manner of articulation. Every sound is composed of smaller components that can be combined in different ways to make other sounds, and each of these components offers a (typically binary) opposition: voiced or voiceless, nasal or oral, open or closed, front or back, etc. Speakers of English are often biased by its alphabetic writing system; they automatically think of each sound as a letter – an autonomous atomic unit, equally related or unrelated to every other letter, so that [p] and [b] are no more closely or distantly related than say [g] and [s]. But sounds are built from lower-level vocal tract choices, and you change one sound into another by switching parameters for each choice (voiced to voiceless, stop to fricative, etc.). Think of “voiced,” for example, not just as an adjective that describes a sound but as one parameter (a choice, a building block, a specific vocal tract configuration) that, in combination with other parameters, creates the sound. The phonetic symbol representing a given sound isn’t the sound itself, but a “cover symbol” for the set of choices. This also means that the speech sounds of a language are related to each other in important ways; some sets of sounds differ only by changing a single parameter, while others differ in the settings of several parameters. As we will discover in the section on phonology, it is these parameters (the distinctive features) of a sound or group of sounds, not the individual sounds or symbols themselves, that are important in describing sound patterns within a linguistic system.
语音学的术语和符号描述了说话者为了产生语言声音必须做出的选择:
The terms and symbols of phonetics describe the choices that a speaker must make in order to produce a linguistic sound:
许多因素都会影响发声某个音节所需的时间。有时,元音长度的差异是元音发音方式不同的无意结果。发低元音时嘴巴必须张大,因此发声所需的时间比发高元音时所需的时间长,而发高元音时几乎不需要移动。然而,在某些语言中,两个音节可能仅在长度上有所不同:长音节和短音节完全相同,只是前者(有意)保持的时间更长,即多了一个“节拍”。这些长音节可以用双符号([aa]、[pp])或在通常的符号后加一个冒号([a:]、[p:])来表示。(有时使用水平线或长音符号来表示长音节。)例如,日语对元音和辅音的长度都有区别。在东京,你要小心点 [bi:.u]“一杯啤酒”,而不是 [bi.u]“一栋建筑”,并询问前往某条 [tori]“街道”的方向,而不是 [to:.i]“门”或 [to:.i:]“鸟”。我们将保留“长元音”一词来指代日语中的区别,其中长/短元音对的所有内容都相同,除了长度之外。
Many factors influence how long it takes to articulate a given segment. Sometimes differences in vowel length are unintentional results of how different vowels are articulated. Low vowels, for which the mouth has to open wide, take longer to articulate than high vowels, for which little movement is necessary. In some languages, however, two segments may differ in length alone: the long segment and short counterpart are exactly the same, except that the former is (intentionally) held for a longer period of time, an extra “beat.” These long segments may be written with a double symbol ([aa], [pp]) or with a colon after the usual symbol ([a:], [p:]). (Sometimes a horizontal bar, or macron, is used to indicate a long segment.) For example, Japanese makes length distinctions in both vowels and consonants. In Tokyo, you want to be careful to order [bi:.u] ‘a beer’ rather than [bi.u] ‘a building,’ and to ask directions to a certain [tori] ‘street,’ rather than a [to:.i] ‘gate’ or [to:.i:] ‘bird.’ We will reserve the term “long vowel” to refer to distinctions such as those in Japanese, where everything about the long/short vowel pair is the same, except for length.
长辅音被称为双辅音。当两个单词连在一起时,英语可以产生长辅音——比较bookcase[bʊkkes] 和book ace[bʊkes] 或top part[tappa.t] 和top art[tapa.t]——但我们不会区分单词中的长辅音和短辅音。当写出双辅音时,例如supper和super,它们实际上告诉我们元音的质量,而不是辅音的长度。
Long consonants are known as geminates. English can create long consonants when two words come together – compare bookcase [bʊkkes] to book ace [bʊkes] or top part [tappa.t] to top art [tapa.t] – but we don’t distinguish long and short consonants within words. When double consonants are written, for example in supper vs. super, they actually tell us about the quality of the vowel, not the length of the consonant.
您可能在小学就学过英语拼写中的长元音和短元音(例如made中的“长a ”和mad中的“短a ”),但这更多的是元音质量([e] vs. [æ])而不是长度的区别。长元音和短元音术语虽然在语言学上不再准确,但并非完全随机:500 年前, made和mad之间的区别实际上是长度,英语元音系统与现代日语非常相似。然而,多年来,一系列声音变化对长元音和短元音产生了不同的影响,导致它们错位。
You probably learned in elementary school about long and short vowels in English spelling (like “long a” as in made and “short a” as in mad), but this is more a distinction of vowel quality ([e] vs. [æ]) than of length. The long–short vowel terminology, while no longer linguistically accurate for English, is not completely random: 500 years ago, the difference between made and mad really was one of length, and the English vowel system was very similar to that of modern Japanese. Over the years, however, a series of sound changes affected the long and short vowels differently, pushing them out of alignment.
声音的音调包含很多信息。它可以告诉你说话者是男是女、是大是小、是老是少。高音调可以告诉你一个人很害怕;低音调则表明他或她很生气。然而,这类信息实际上不是语言信息,而是生理或情感信息。声调和语调这两个术语指的是音调的语言用法。声调是指使用音调在单词层面传达含义;语调是指使用音调在句子或话语层面传达含义。
The pitch of the voice carries a lot of information. It can tell you whether the speaker is a male or female, a large person or small, old or young. High pitch can tell you that a person is frightened; low pitch that he or she is angry. This sort of information isn’t really linguistic, however, but physical or emotional. The terms tone and intonation refer to linguistic uses of pitch. Tone refers to the use of pitch to convey meaning at the word level; intonation refers to the use of pitch to convey meaning at the sentence or discourse level.
语调可以区分不同类型的句子或将注意力集中在某个特定的单词上。例如,尝试大声(生动地)朗读以下句子:
Intonation distinguishes different kinds of sentences or focuses attention on a particular word. For example, try reading the following sentences out loud (and dramatically):
“那是一只猫?”
“That’s a cat?”
“是的。那是一只猫。”
“Yup. That’s a cat.”
“一只猫?我以为是一只美洲狮!”
“A cat? I thought it was a mountain lion!”
在说单词cat时,您的音调会朝不同的方向变化。说第一个cat 时,音调上升,表示疑问。说第二个 cat 时,音调下降,表示陈述或确认。说第三个cat时,音调的下降-上升模式更为复杂,表示怀疑。(在印刷术上,我们分别用问号、句号和斜体表示这些不同的“读法”。)在每种情况下,序列 [k h æt] 都指的是同一个对象,即猫科动物。音调差异只表示在当前对话中对猫科动物的提及所起的作用:询问有关猫的信息、提供信息或表达对所提供信息的怀疑。所有语言都会在一定程度上使用语调,尽管不同语言的模式和含义有所不同。
The pitch of your voice moves in different directions on the word cat. On the first cat, pitch goes up, indicating a question. On the second, pitch falls, indicating a statement or confirmation. On the third cat, a more complicated fall–rise pattern indicates incredulity. (Typographically, we indicate these different “readings” with a question mark, period, and italics, respectively.) In each case, the sequence [khæt] refers to the same object, a feline. The pitch differences indicate only the role that the reference to the feline is playing in the current conversation: asking for information about the cat, providing it, or expressing disbelief regarding the information offered. All languages use intonation to some extent, though the patterns and meanings differ across languages.
除了语调,大多数语言还使用音调来区分不同的单词。在英语中,无论你用上升音调还是下降音调说 [k h æt],这个词仍然是指猫科动物。在泰语中,如果你用上升音调说 [k h a:],它的意思是“腿”;但如果你用下降音调说,它的意思是“值”。(泰语中实际上有五种对比鲜明的音调模式:高、低、中、下降和上升。)这些词对英语使用者来说就像cat和cut一样不同。这种使用音调来区分不同单词的方式称为声调。
In addition to intonation, most languages also use pitch to distinguish different words. In English, whether you say [khæt] with a rising pitch or falling pitch, the word still refers to a feline. In Thai, if you say [kha:] with rising pitch, it means ‘leg’; but if you say it with falling pitch, it means ‘value.’ (There are actually five contrasting pitch patterns in Thai: high, low, mid, falling, and rising.) These words are as different as cat and cut to an English speaker. This use of pitch, to distinguish different words, is known as tone.
虽然声调的概念对于英语使用者来说似乎很奇怪,但世界上大多数语言都是有声调的。欧洲主要语言及其近亲是例外,因为它们没有声调。语气。
Although the idea of tones seems very strange to English speakers, the majority of the world’s languages are tonal. The major European languages and their relatives are exceptional in not having tone.
Appalachicola?Massachusetts?Antidisestablishmentarianism ?这些单词有多少个音节?(分别为六个、四个和十一个。)说英语的人很容易就能数出一个单词的音节数,但语言学家很难定义什么是音节。
How many syllables are in the word Appalachicola? Massachusetts? Antidisestablishmentarianism? (six, four, and eleven, respectively.) English speakers have little trouble counting the number of syllables in a word, but linguists have a harder time defining what a syllable is.
一个初步的答案可能是“一个元音和它周围的辅音”。我们在英语中遇到的大多数音节,比如pin、print甚至sprints等词,都符合这个定义。但是,完全有可能有一个没有元音的音节。我们都同意hidden有两个音节,即使发音为 [h ɪ dn],两个辅音之间也没有元音。此外,将音节定义为“一个元音和它周围的辅音”并不能解释为什么某些辅音序列是允许的,而其他的则不可以。序列 [pr ɪ nt] 在英语中可以作为音节,但序列 [rp ɪ tn] 在任何语言中都不能作为单个音节。为什么 [pr ɪ nt] 是一个好音节,而 [rp ɪ tn] 不是?
One preliminary answer might be “a vowel and its surrounding consonants.” Most of the syllables we encounter in English, in words like pin, print, or even sprints, fit this definition. However, it’s perfectly possible to have a syllable without a vowel. We would all agree that hidden has two syllables, even if pronounced [hɪdn], with no vowel between the two consonants. Also, defining a syllable as “a vowel and the consonants around it” doesn’t explain why some sequences of consonants are allowed and others are not. The sequence [prɪnt] is acceptable as a syllable in English, but the sequence [rpɪtn] is not acceptable as a single syllable in any language. Why is [prɪnt] a good syllable when [rpɪtn] is not?
最好的答案(尽管并不完美)在于响度的概念。响度可以定义为声道的相对开放程度,它直接对应于声音的相对响度。最响亮的声音是低元音;嘴巴张得很大,声音自由流出。最不响亮的声音是清音塞音;嘴巴完全闭合,完全不发出声音。其他声音介于这两个极端之间。
The best answer (though not perfect) lies in the concept of sonority. Sonority can be defined as relative openness of the vocal tract, which corresponds directly to the relative loudness of a sound. The most sonorous sounds are the low vowels; the mouth is wide open, and the sound flows freely out. The least sonorous sounds are the voiceless stops; the mouth is completely shut, and no sound is made at all. Other sounds range between these two extremes.
语音流由声音的峰和谷组成。语言通常不会选择长串的辅音或长串的元音。相反,我们交替 更响亮的声音和不太响亮的声音:每个声音都在另一个声音的背景下显得更加突出。因此,音节可以被定义为围绕响度峰值组织声音的一种方式。
The speech stream is organized into peaks and valleys of sonority. Languages generally do not choose long strings of consonants nor long strings of vowels. Rather, we alternate sounds that are more sonorous and less sonorous: each stands out better against the background of the other. A syllable, then, may be defined as a way of organizing sounds around a peak of sonority.
以单音节pin为例。元音 [ ɪ ] 是序列中最响亮的声音,其两侧是响度较低的辅音。因此,只有一个响度峰值和一个音节。音节印记也遵循响度原则。响度从 [p] 开始上升(清塞音 ) 变为 [r] (第一个音节是 [rhotic] 音节,从 [ rhotic ] 音节变为 [ɪ ] 音节,然后从元音变为 [n] 音节,再变为 [t] 音节。只有一个峰值,一个音节。而 [rp ɪ tn] 音节有三个峰值,响度较高的 [r]、[ ɪ ] 和 [n] 被响度最低的 [p] 和 [t] 所打断。因此(如果它可以发音的话)它有三个音节,而不是一个。
Take the simple syllable pin. The vowel [ɪ] is the most sonorous sound in the sequence, flanked by less sonorous consonants. Thus there is a single sonority peak, and a single syllable. The syllable print also follows the principle of sonority. Sonority rises from [p] (voiceless stop) to [r] (rhotic) to [ɪ] (vowel), then falls from vowel to [n] (nasal) to [t] (stop). A single peak, a single syllable. Meanwhile, the sequence [rpɪtn] has three peaks; higher sonority [r], [ɪ], and [n] are interrupted by lowest sonority [p] and [t]. Thus (if it is pronounceable at all) it has three syllables, not one.
音节中最响亮的元素,即音峰本身,称为音核。音核之前的低响度声音称为音首;音核之后的声音称为音节尾声。核心和尾声共同构成韵。图 1.6显示了print的音节结构树形图。(在语言学中,这种树形图通常用于显示较大单位的组成部分之间的关系,因此您将在其他章节中看到更多树形图!)
The most sonorous element of a syllable, the peak itself, is called the nucleus. Lower sonority sounds preceding the nucleus are called the onset; those following the nucleus are called the coda. The nucleus and coda together form the rhyme. A syllable structure tree diagram for the word print is shown in Figure 1.6. (In linguistics, such tree diagrams are often used to show how constituent parts of a larger unit are related, so you’ll see more tree diagrams in other chapters!)
由于元音是最响亮的声音,它们通常构成音节核,但情况并非总是如此。除元音之外的声音也可能形成响度峰值,因此hidden和prism有一个元音但有两个音节。
Since vowels are the most sonorous sounds, they usually constitute syllable nuclei, but that’s not always the case. Sounds other than vowels may form sonority peaks, so that hidden and prism have one vowel but two syllables.
因此,响度似乎捕捉到了我们对音节结构的大部分直觉,并解释了世界上各种语言中可能出现的音节。但响度并不能解释一切。有些英语单词明显违反了响度原则——例如sprints和sixties。语言学家不确定如何处理这样的单词。可能像复数 [s] 和序数 [ θ ] 这样的结尾根本不是音节的一部分;而是作为“附录”附加在音节的末尾。单词。
Sonority thus seems to capture most of our intuitions about syllable structure and explains a lot about possible syllables in the languages of the world. But sonority doesn’t account for everything. There are some English words that clearly violate the principle of sonority – sprints and sixths, for example. Linguists aren’t sure exactly how to deal with words like this. It may be that endings like plural [s] and ordinal [θ] are not really part of the syllable at all; rather they’re tacked on in an “appendix” to the end of the word.
语言重音是音节之间的突出关系:某些音节比周围的音节更长、更响、音调更高或发音更清晰。就像我们通常可以数出单词中的音节一样,我们通常可以选出最突出的音节:音系学、语音学、句法学。
Linguistic stress is a prominence relation between syllables: certain syllables are longer, louder, higher-pitched, or more clearly articulated than those around them. Just as we can generally count the syllables in a word, we can generally pick out the syllable that’s most prominent: phoNOlogy, phoNEtics, SYNtax.
英语中至少有三种不同的重音级别。以 Alabama这个词为例。第三个音节 [bæ] 最为突出,承担着整个音节的主要或主要重音。单词,但其他三个音节的重音并不相等。第一个音节具有完整的元音质量 [æ],尽管它不如第三个音节那么长或响亮,但第二和第四个音节短而弱,舌头不会远离其中心位置。我们说第一个音节有次要重音,而第二和第四个音节完全没有重音。
There are at least three different levels of stress in English. Consider the word Alabama. The third syllable [bæ] is the most prominent, and bears the main or primary stress of the word, but the other three syllables do not receive equal stress. The first syllable has a full vowel quality [æ], though it is not quite as long or loud as the third, but the second and fourth syllables are short and weak, with the tongue not moving far from its central position. We say that the first syllable has secondary stress, while the second and fourth are completely unstressed.
有些语言不使用重音全部。例如,在日语中,单词中的所有音节有时发音相同。这给说英语的人带来了不少麻烦。例如,1996 年日本举办冬季奥运会时,英语评论员在决定如何说出主办城市的名字时遇到了很大麻烦:长野?NaGAno?NagaNO?事实上,这个词的所有音节都同样重读(或同样非重读),这对说英语的人来说是一项艰巨的任务。相反,说日语的人经常在减少英语的非重读元音方面遇到很大困难,这在英语人士听来过于谨慎。
Some languages do not use stress at all. In Japanese, for example, all the syllables in a word are sometimes pronounced with equal prominence. This gives quite a bit of trouble to English speakers. In 1996, for example, when the Winter Olympics were held in Japan, English commentators had a great deal of trouble deciding how to say the name of the host city: NAgano? NaGAno? NagaNO? In fact, the word is pronounced with all syllables equally stressed (or equally unstressed), a difficult task for an English speaker. Conversely, Japanese speakers often have a great deal of trouble with reducing the unstressed vowels of English, sounding overly careful to English ears.
因为重音是一种突出关系,所以重音和非重音音节往往会在单词中交替出现:例如ApalachiCOla。为了使音节听起来突出,最好将其周围安排一些非突出音节。在英语中,重音有时甚至会移动以适应交替模式。在像sixteen这样的单词中,重音通常落在第二个音节上(你几岁了?SixTEEN)。但是,如果将这个单词放在以强重音音节开头的单词旁边,重音可能会向后移动以保持交替模式(你在这里工作了多久?SIXTEN YEARS)。语言学家将重音音节和相邻非重音音节的组合称为音步。选择不同类型的音步(da-DUM 与 DA-dum)不仅在诗歌中很重要,而且是定义语言展开的语音节奏的一部分。
Because stress is a prominence relation, stressed and unstressed syllables tend to alternate across the word: ApalachiCOla, for instance. In order for a syllable to be heard as prominent, it helps if it’s surrounded by non-prominent syllables. In English, stress sometimes even moves around in order to accommodate an alternating pattern. In a word like sixteen, stress usually falls on the second syllable (How old are you? SixTEEN.). But put the word next to one that begins with a strongly stressed syllable, and stress may shift back in order to maintain an alternating pattern (How long have you worked here? SIXteen YEARS.) Linguists refer to a grouping of a stressed syllable and adjacent unstressed syllables as a foot. Choosing different kinds of feet (da-DUM vs. DA-dum) is important not only in poetry, but as part of defining a language’s unfolding rhythm of speech.
重音完全可预测的语言被称为固定应力系统。固定应力可以是交替的,例如Pintupi 是一种澳大利亚语言,重音总是落在第一个音节上,然后落在之后的每个音节上:[KUra ululimpatjura]“第一个(是)我们的亲戚。”其他固定重音系统可能会在单词中挑选出一个特别突出的音节。在波斯语中,重音总是在第一个音节上,土耳其语总是在最后一个音节上,总是在倒数第二个音节进行抛光。
Languages in which stress is completely predictable are called fixed stress systems. Fixed stress may be alternating, as in Pintupi, an Australian language where stress always falls on the first syllable and then on every other syllable after that: [KUra ululimpatjura] ‘the first one (who is) our relation.’ Other fixed stress systems may pick out just one syllable in the word as especially prominent. In Farsi, stress is always on the initial syllable, in Turkish always on the last syllable, in Polish always on the second-to-last syllable.
在其他语言中,重音是不可预测的:你只需要记住学习单词时哪个音节要重读,就像你必须记住它是以 [b] 还是 [p] 开头一样。这被称为词汇重音。例如,俄语有词汇重音系统:如果重音放在第一个音节上,[duxi] 的意思是“烈酒”;重音放在第二个音节上,则意思是“香水”。
In other languages, stress is unpredictable: you just have to memorize which syllable gets stressed when you learn the word, in the same way you have to memorize whether it begins with [b] or [p]. This is called lexical stress. For example, Russian has a lexical stress system: if stress is placed on the first syllable, [duxi] means ‘spirits’; stressed on the second syllable, it means ‘perfume.’
第三类系统是聚合重音,重音模式取决于单词的词性——例如,名词或动词。英语系统大多是聚合重音,有一些不可预测的方面。一般来说,英语动词和形容词遵循一套规则,名词遵循另一套规则。因此,英语中有只在重音上不同的单词对,其中一个单词是名词,另一个是动词:我们用 reJECT 表示 REject,用 reCORD 表示 REcord,用 convert 表示 CONVERT,用 inSULT 表示侮辱等等。
The third type of system is paradigmatic stress, in which the stress patterns depend on what part of speech a word is – for example, a noun or a verb. The English system is mostly paradigmatic, with some unpredictable aspects. Generally, English verbs and adjectives follow one set of rules, nouns another. Thus English has pairs of words that differ only in stress, where one word is a noun and the other a verb: we reJECT the REject, reCORD the REcord, conVERT the CONvert, inSULT with an INsult, etc.
到目前为止,我们已经讨论了发音,即语音是如何在口腔内发出的。但口腔内发生的事情只是这个过程的一部分。为了理解人们如何使用声音进行交流,我们还必须了解发音器官如何将空气运动转化为声音,声音经过嘴唇后会发生什么,它如何在空气中传播,以及它如何影响听众的耳朵和大脑(有时还有麦克风、录音机和电脑)。语言学对声音的研究属于声学语音学。
Thus far, we have talked about articulation, how speech sounds are made inside the mouth. But what happens inside the mouth is only part of the process. In order to understand how people use sound to communicate, we must also understand how the articulators turn air movements into sound, what happens to sound after it passes through the lips, how it travels through the air, and how it impacts on the ears and brain (and sometimes the microphones, recorders, and computers) of those who listen. These aspects of the linguistic study of sound fall under the heading of acoustic phonetics.
语音是由流动的空气产生的。发音就是让空气以可以听到的方式流动——振动、爆裂或嗖嗖。在这个简短的介绍中,我们将重点介绍浊音(尤其是元音)的振动模式。但语音非常复杂,所以从思考更简单的东西开始会有所帮助——音叉。
Speech sounds are caused by moving air. Articulation is all about getting air to move in ways that can be heard – vibrating, popping, or swishing. In this short introduction, we will focus on the patterns of vibration in voiced sounds, particularly vowels. But speech sounds are very complex, so it helps to start by thinking about something much simpler – a tuning fork.
将音叉敲击在桌子或其他硬物上,叉齿就会振动。根据音叉的具体形状和大小,叉齿会以特定的速率或频率振动。例如,调到“管弦乐 A”的音叉将以每秒 440 次 (cps) 的频率振动,其中一个周期等于叉齿末端来回运动一次。(“每秒周期”通常称为“赫兹”——缩写为 Hz——以一位著名物理学家命名,海因里希·赫兹。)
Strike a tuning fork against a table or other hard object, and the tines of the fork will vibrate. Depending on the exact shape and size of the fork, the tines will vibrate at a particular rate, or frequency. A fork tuned to “orchestral A,” for example, will vibrate at a frequency of 440 cycles per second (cps), where a cycle equals one back and forth motion of the end of the tine. (“Cycles per second” are often called “Hertz” – abbreviated Hz – after a famous physicist, Heinrich Hertz.)
不同的物体具有不同的固有振动频率,这决定了声音的音调。小手铃的振动速度更快,发出的声音也更高,而巨大的教堂钟的振动速度更慢,发出的声音也更低。人类可以听到低至约 20 Hz 和高达约 20,000 Hz 的频率。人类不会将比这更快或更慢的振动视为声音,但狗可以听到高达 45,000 Hz 的频率,而蝙蝠和海豚可以听到超过 100,000 Hz 的频率。
Different objects have different inherent frequencies of vibration, which determine the pitch of the sound. A small handbell will vibrate faster and make a higher pitched sound than a huge churchbell, which will vibrate slower and make a lower pitched sound. Human beings can hear frequencies as low as about 20 Hz, and as high as about 20,000 Hz. Humans will not perceive vibrations faster or slower than that as sound, although dogs can hear frequencies up to 45,000 Hz and bats and dolphins over 100,000 Hz.
音叉的振动是如何以声音的形式传到我们耳朵里的?当音叉的末端振动时,它们会使旁边的空气粒子也振动,并进行相同的来回运动。这些移动的空气粒子交替推拉旁边的粒子,以及旁边粒子上的粒子,依此类推,因此振动模式就像池塘里的涟漪一样从音叉向外移动。这些移动的振动模式称为声波。当声波到达我们的耳朵(或麦克风)时,它们会使耳膜(或麦克风中的膜)按照相同的模式振动。在耳朵内部,振动会引发神经冲动,我们的大脑会将其解释为声音。
How does the vibration of the tuning fork make it to our ears as sound? As the ends of the tuning fork vibrate, they set the air particles next to them vibrating as well, following the same back and forth motion. These moving air particles alternately push and pull on the particles next to them, and those on the particles next to them, and so on, so that the pattern of vibration moves outward from the tuning fork like ripples in a pond. These moving patterns of vibration are called sound waves. When the sound waves reach our ears (or a microphone), they set the eardrum (or the membrane in the microphone) vibrating according to the same pattern. Inside the ear, the vibrations set off nerve impulses, which are interpreted by our brains as sound.
音叉的运动非常简单(像钟摆一样来回摆动),因此它产生的声波也非常简单。如此简单的振动发出的声音是单一频率(如 440 Hz)的纯音。但声道的振动——以及它发出的声音——则更为复杂。
The motion of a tuning fork is very simple (back and forth, like a pendulum), and thus the sound wave it creates is also very simple. The sound such a simple vibration makes is a pure tone of a single frequency (like 440 Hz). But the vibrations of the vocal tract – and the sounds it makes – are more complicated.
声道就像单簧管。声带是簧片,是声音的来源。 振动。口中的气柱是乐器中的气柱,是振动的过滤器。而说话者当然是音乐家,通过改变气柱的形状来调节产生的声音。以这种方式思考语音被称为语音产生的源过滤理论。
The vocal tract is like a clarinet. The vocal folds are the reed, the source of the vibration. The column of air in the mouth is the column of air in the instrument, the filter of the vibration. And the speaker, of course, is the musician, changing the shape of the column of air to modulate the sound produced. Thinking about speech sounds in this way is called the source-filter theory of speech production.
它的工作原理如下。当空气从气管中流出并经过声带时,如果说话者将声带保持在正确的位置,声带就会开始振动。它们以每秒约 100 次(对于体型较大的成年男性)和每秒 300 次(对于儿童)的频率拍打和闭合。但除了这种基本的拍打动作之外,移动的声带中还有许多不同的子波纹。想象一下晾衣绳上被微风吹动的床单;它们不是僵硬地上下拍打,而是以复杂的图案波动。这些小波纹中的每一个都会为声音贡献自己的振动模式,从而产生“泛音”,或除了说话者声音的基本音调外,还有谐波。振动的基本频率,即基频,决定了音调,但泛音创造了不同声音的不同品质。
This is how it works. As air passes out of the trachea and over the vocal folds, if the speaker holds them in the correct position, the folds begin to vibrate. They flap open and closed at a frequency between about 100 times per second (for a large adult male) and 300 times per second (for a child). But on top of this basic flapping motion, there are many different subripples in the moving vocal folds. Think of sheets flapping in the breeze on a laundry line; they don’t flap stiffly up and down, but ripple in complicated patterns. Each of these little ripples contributes its own pattern of vibration to the sound, creating “overtones,” or harmonics, in addition to the basic pitch of the speaker’s voice. The basic rate of vibration, the fundamental frequency, determines the pitch, but the overtones create the different qualities of different sounds.
当声带振动时,它们会以同样复杂的方式引发声道内的空气振动。声道内的空气会过滤声带产生的声音的谐波结构。某些波纹(即某些谐波)会被放大,而其他波纹(其他谐波)则会被衰减。哪些谐波会被放大取决于声道内空气柱的形状。回想一下,不同的物体具有不同的特征振动模式,这取决于它们的大小和形状(例如手摇铃和教堂钟)。钟声的情况也适用于封闭的空气体。不同形状的空气体会以不同的频率振动。与特定声道形状的特征频率“一致”的谐波会被放大,而那些不一致的谐波会被减弱。说话者通过将舌头和嘴唇移动到不同的位置来控制过滤器,放大一些谐波并阻挡其他谐波。放大最强的频率称为共振峰。不同的元音有不同的共振峰结构。
As the vocal folds vibrate, they start the air inside the vocal tract vibrating in the same complex way. The air in the vocal tract then filters the harmonic structure of the sound produced at the vocal folds. Certain ripples (that is, certain harmonics) are amplified, and other ripples (other harmonics) are damped out. Which harmonics are amplified depends on the shape of column(s) of air inside the vocal tract. Recall that different objects have different characteristic patterns of vibration, depending on their size and shape (handbells vs. churchbells, for instance). What is true of bells is also true of enclosed bodies of air. Differently shaped bodies of air will tend to vibrate at different frequencies. Harmonics that are “in tune” with the characteristic frequencies of a particular vocal tract shape will be amplified, those that are not in tune will be reduced. The speaker controls the filter by moving the tongue and lips to different positions, amplifying some harmonics and blocking out others. The most strongly amplified frequencies are called formants. Different vowel sounds have different formant structures.
因此,根据舌头和嘴唇的形状,每个元音都有一种独特的、复杂的振动模式。振动从嘴唇传出,传播到世界各地。声波以每秒约 340 米的速度在空气中传播,直到它们撞击到专门用于接收它们的膜上,例如耳膜。
So, depending on the shape of the tongue and lips, each vowel sound has a characteristic, complex pattern of vibration. The vibration moves out past the lips, and propagates into the world. The sound waves travel through the air at the rate of about 340 meters per second, until they impinge on a membrane tuned to receive them, such as the eardrum.
耳朵分为三部分:外耳、中耳和内耳,如图1.7所示。外耳由可见的耳朵外壳(耳廓(英语:pinna )和通向耳膜的耳道。耳廓有助于更好地捕捉声音,并在空间中定位声音。耳道保护耳膜,还有助于放大与语音相关的声音。声波沿着耳道中的空气传播,直到到达耳膜,耳膜开始振动。
The ear has three parts – the outer, middle, and inner ear, as shown in Figure 1.7. The outer ear consists of the visible shell of the ear (the pinna) and the ear canal leading down to the eardrum. The pinna helps to capture sounds better, and to locate sounds in space. The ear canal protects the eardrum, and also helps to amplify the sounds that are relevant for speech. Sound waves travel down the air in the ear canal until they reach the eardrum, which begins to vibrate.
中耳位于耳膜后面,是人体中最小的三块骨头( 听小骨)。振动模式从耳膜通过听小骨传递到 中耳到内耳,耳蜗。通过中耳的这一额外传输阶段有助于放大非常小的声音,并降低非常大的声音。听力实际上是在耳蜗中发生的。耳蜗看起来像一个卷曲的蜗牛壳,比大理石还小。耳蜗分为上腔和下腔,内充满液体。至关重要的是,分隔两个腔的膜,即耳蜗膜,其长度并不均匀,而是逐渐变细。它一端厚 3 毫米,多骨,另一端薄(仅 1 毫米)且柔韧。整个膜上嵌入了微小的毛细胞,每根纤毛都附着在神经末梢上,在耳蜗液中轻轻摇动。
Behind the eardrum, in the middle ear, are the three smallest bones in the body (the ossicles). The patterns of vibration are transferred from the eardrum through the bones of the middle ear to the inner ear, the cochlea. This additional stage of transfer, through the middle ear, helps to amplify very soft sounds, and tone down very loud sounds. It is in the cochlea that hearing actually takes place. The cochlea looks like a curled-up snail shell, smaller than a marble. The cochlea is divided into upper and lower chambers, which are filled with fluid. Crucially, the membrane separating the two chambers, the cochlear membrane, is not uniform along its length, but is tapered. It is 3 millimeters thick and bony at one end and thin (just 1 millimeter) and flexible at the other. Embedded all along the membrane are tiny hair cells, the cilia, each attached to a nerve ending, and waving gently in the cochlear fluid.
当鼓膜振动时,中耳的骨头也会振动,进而引起内耳膜(耳蜗液体中的振动模式反映了说话者声道中产生的复杂声音模式——振动声带的基频以及不同元音的谐波特征 。
As the eardrum vibrates, the bones of the middle ear vibrate, which in turn cause the membrane of the inner ear (the oval window) to vibrate, starting up waves of vibration in the fluid of the inner ear. The patterns of vibration in the cochlear fluid mirror the complex pattern of sound created in the vocal tract of the speaker – the fundamental frequency of the vibrating vocal folds as well as the harmonic characteristics of the different vowels.
再次回想一下,不同大小和形状的物体倾向于以不同的频率振动。由于耳蜗膜的形状沿其长度变化(一端厚,另一端薄),膜上的不同位置对不同频率的振动有反应。厚端与低音调一致振动,薄端与高音调一致振动,而膜的中间部分与中音调一致振动。响应给定的振动模式,耳蜗膜上不同位置的纤毛被激活,向大脑发送有关传入波中存在的频率的信号。大脑将其感知到的频率信息重新组合成声音语言。
Again recall that objects of different size and shape tend to vibrate at different frequencies. Because the cochlear membrane varies in shape along its length (thick at one end, thin at the other) different places along the membrane respond to different frequencies of vibration. The thick end vibrates in tune to low-pitched sounds, the thin end in tune to higher-pitched sounds, and parts of the membrane in between vibrate in tune to mid-range sounds. In response to a given pattern of vibration, cilia at different places along the cochlear membrane are activated, sending signals to the brain about the frequencies present in the incoming wave. The brain recombines the frequency information it perceives into the sounds of language.
直到最近,语音学家的耳朵还是唯一可用于分析声音的工具,而且它们可能仍然是最精确和最可靠的。然而,从 20 世纪开始,语音学家开始发现让声音 可见。早期的设备,如示波器和声谱仪,使用麦克风将空气中的振动模式转换为电流变化模式。然后可以将这些变化显示在纸上或屏幕上,或通过电容器和电阻器组进行进一步测量和研究。
Until quite recently, the phonetician’s ears were the only instruments available for the analysis of sound, and they are probably still the most finely tuned and reliable. Beginning in the 1900s, however, phoneticians began to discover ways to make sound visible. Early devices, such as oscilloscopes and sound spectrographs, used a microphone to transfer patterns of vibration in the air into patterns of variation in electrical current. These variations could then be displayed – on paper or a screen – or passed through banks of capacitors and resistors for further measurement and study.
在二十一世纪初期,语音分析是通过计算机完成的。麦克风仍然将膜片的振动转换成电流的变化。但计算机将连续变化的声波转换成一系列数字;这称为模拟到数字 (A-to-D) 转换。(反向工作,让计算机、数字视频磁盘或数字音频播放器发出声音,是 D-to-A 转换。)
In the first part of the twenty-first century, speech analysis is done by computer. Microphones still convert the vibration of the membrane into variations in electrical current. But then computers convert a continuously varying sound wave into a series of numbers; this is called an analog-to-digital (A-to-D) conversion. (Working in the opposite direction, getting a computer, digital video disk, or digital audio player to make sound, is D-to-A conversion.)
一旦以数字格式表示和存储,声音文件就可以进行数学分析,以分离出不同的频率,并将分析结果以各种格式显示在屏幕上。图 1.8显示了三种常见且有用的显示。这三种显示都显示了“音素?”这句话(这些图形是在笔记本电脑上使用从互联网上免费下载的软件创建的。)
Once represented and stored in a digital format, sound files can be mathematically analyzed to separate out the different frequencies, and the results of the analysis displayed onscreen in various formats. Three common and useful displays are shown in Figure 1.8. All three show the utterance “A phoneme?” (These figures were created on a laptop computer, using software that was downloaded free from the internet.)
图 1.8A显示了波形;随时间变化的振动幅度(对应于响度)(在 y 轴上)被绘制出来(在 x 轴上)。话语的持续时间为一秒。波形上方是与波形的每个部分(大致)相对应的片段。请注意,元音 [o] 和 [i] 的振幅最大,阻塞音 [f] 的振幅最小,鼻音和非重音 [ ə ] 的振幅居中。图 1.8A还显示了波形各部分的特写视图(放大 12 倍)。在此放大倍数下,您可以看到摩擦音的随机噪声,以及每个元音特有的复杂、重复的振动模式。[o] 和 [i] 的模式不同,因此元音的质量也不同。波形是一种有用的表示方法,可用于查看话语的整体结构,识别不同类型的声音(停止,元音,我们可以使用语音识别技术(例如,鼻辅音)来检测语音信号中各个方面的持续时间。
Figure 1.8A shows a waveform; the varying amplitude (corresponding to loudness) of the vibrations (on the y-axis) is plotted over time (on the x-axis). The duration of the utterance is one second. Above the waveform are the segments (roughly) corresponding to each part of the waveform. Note that the vowels [o] and [i] have the greatest amplitude, the obstruent [f] the least, and the nasals and unstressed [ə] have an intermediate amplitude. Figure 1.8A also shows a close-up view (magnified 12 times) of portions of the waveform. At this magnification, you can see the random noisiness of the fricative, and the complex, repeating pattern of vibration that is characteristic of each vowel. The patterns for [o] and [i] are different, and thus the vowel qualities are different. The waveform is a useful representation for seeing the overall structure of an utterance, identifying the different types of sounds (stop, vowel, nasal consonant), and measuring the durations of different aspects of the speech signal.
由于音调变化承载着各种交流信息,语言学家经常希望测量说话过程中的基频。图 1.8B显示了这种计算的结果,音调轨迹。在此表示中,y 轴表示频率,x 轴表示时间。请注意,在 [f] 期间没有计算频率。由于此片段中没有声带振动,因此没有频率可测量。此音调轨迹显示此说话者的声音的基线基频约为 200 Hz,但此频率在话语结束时上升,呈典型的问题轮廓。
Because of all the communicative information carried by pitch changes, linguists often want to measure fundamental frequency over the course of an utterance. Figure 1.8B shows the result of such a computation, a pitch track. In this representation, the y-axis shows frequency, and time is on the x-axis. Notice that no frequency is calculated during the [f]. Since there is no vocal fold vibration during this segment, there is no frequency to measure. This pitch track shows that this speaker’s voice has a baseline fundamental frequency of about 200 Hz, but that this frequency rises toward the end of the utterance, in a contour typical of a question.
然而,这两个图都没有告诉我们太多有关元音音质的信息。我们可以从波形中看出 [o] 和 [i] 中的元音音质不同,因为模式看起来不同,但复杂的曲线并没有告诉我们太多有关组成泛音的信息,因此也没有告诉我们构成它们的声道形状。计算机可以进一步分析声波以分离其组成频率。这种分析的结果是频谱图,如图1.8C所示。
Neither of these figures, however, has told us much about the quality of the vowel sounds. We can see from the waveforms that the vowel qualities in [o] and [i] are different, because the patterns look different, but the complex squiggles don’t tell us much about the component overtones and thus about the vocal tract shape that made them. The computer can further analyze the sound wave to tease apart its component frequencies. The result of this analysis is a spectrogram, shown in Figure 1.8C.
与音高轨迹一样,x 轴表示时间,y 轴表示频率。但我们看到的不是单条线图,而是每个声音中存在的许多频率的复杂模式。我们希望分析结果告诉我们哪些频率最响亮,因为一旦我们知道哪些频率被放大了,我们可以使用已知公式来计算出产生这些频率的声道的(近似)形状。这个至关重要的第三维度,即振幅,由线条的暗度表示。某个频率的暗条表示该频率在声音中表现强烈。每个元音都有两个或三个最突出的频率模式,称为共振峰,高于说话者声带的基频。例如,在 [o] 元音中,我们看到共振峰位于约 1200 Hz。[i] 元音具有不同的共振峰结构,第二个共振峰位于约3000赫兹。
As with a pitch track, the x-axis represents time, and the y-axis shows frequency. But instead of a single line graph, we see a complicated pattern of the many frequencies present in each sound. We want our analysis to tell us which frequencies are the loudest, because once we know which frequencies have been amplified, we can use known formulas to figure out the (approximate) shape of the vocal tract that made them. This crucial third dimension, amplitude, is represented by the darkness of the lines. A dark bar at a certain frequency means that that frequency is strongly represented in the sound. Each vowel has a pattern of two or three most prominent frequencies, called formants, above the fundamental frequency of the speaker’s vocal folds. For example, during the [o] vowel, we see a formant at about 1200 Hz. The [i] vowel has a different formant structure, with the second formant at about 3000 Hz.
由于声道形状和共振峰结构之间的基本关系是已知的,我们可以从共振峰结构推断出我们看不到的舌头的位置。频谱图。对于不同的说话者,语音之间的一般关系保持不变:例如,[i] 中的第二共振峰始终高于 [o]。但由于每个人的声道大小和形状都是独一无二的,因此每个人的共振峰结构也是独一无二的我们也能够识别熟悉的声音,无论他们在说什么,在专家的手中,声谱图就像一个人的指纹。
Because the basic relationships between vocal tract shape and formant structure are known, we can infer the position of the tongue, which we can’t see, from the formant structure on the spectrogram. Across speakers, the general relationships between speech sounds remain the same: for example, the second formant is always higher in [i] than in [o]. But because every person’s vocal tract size and shape is unique, every person’s formant structure is unique too. We recognize familiar voices, regardless of what they’re saying, and in the hands of an expert, a spectrographic voice print is as unique as a fingerprint.
关于语音,还有什么可说的呢?相当多。语言不仅存在于口中或耳朵中,还存在于大脑中。当我们从分析语音的物理方面转向研究其认知组织时,我们就从语音学转向了音系学。音系学永远无法完全脱离语音学,因为声音模式永远无法完全脱离其产生和听到的方式,而产生和感知总是受到总体语言组织的影响。
What else could there be to say about the sounds of speech? Quite a lot. Language isn’t just in the mouth or ears, but also in the brain. When we turn from analyzing the physical aspects of speech sounds to studying their cognitive organization, we move from phonetics to phonology. Phonology can never be completely divorced from phonetics, since sound patterns can never be completely separated from how they are produced and heard, and production and perception are always influenced by the overarching linguistic organization.
所有人类的声道和耳朵结构基本相同。那么为什么语言会有如此大的不同呢?某种程度上,这是因为它们使用了人类声道可能发出的不同声音。阿拉伯语使用咽舌擦音和小舌擦音,而英语则不使用。法语选择前圆元音(例如 [y] 和 [ œ ]),英语选择松高元音([ ɪ ] 和 [ ʊ ]),西班牙语坚持使用基本发音 [i, e, a, o, u]。因此,在某种程度上,学习说一门新语言就是学习发出新的声音。
All human beings have basically the same structures in their vocal tracts and in their ears. So why are languages so different? To some extent, it is because they use different sounds from the repertoire of possible human vocal tract noises. Arabic uses pharyngeal and uvular fricatives, while English does not. French selects front round vowels (such as [y] and [œ]), English selects lax high vowels ([ɪ] and [ʊ]), and Spanish sticks to basic [i, e, a, o, u]. Thus, to some extent, learning to speak a new language is about learning to make new sounds.
但事情远不止如此。语言之间的差异不仅在于所使用的声音,还在于如何将这些声音组织成模式。例如,考虑一下英语和西班牙语的浊音阻塞音。
But there’s more to it than that. Languages differ not only in the sounds they use, but in how they organize those sounds into patterns. Consider, for example, the voiced obstruents of English and Spanish.
英语和西班牙语都有 [d] 和 [ð] 这两个音。例如,英语有den [d ɛ n] 和[ð ɛ n],而西班牙语有 [dama] '女士' 和 [laðo] '侧面'。这两个音在两种语言中都有出现,但它们的分布(即声音出现的位置)不同,并且它们之间的差异所传达的信息也不同。
Both English and Spanish have the sounds [d] and [ð]. For example, English has den [dɛn] and then [ðɛn], while Spanish has [dama] ‘lady’ and [laðo] ‘side.’ Both sounds occur in both languages, but they differ in their distributions – that is, where the sounds appear – and in the information the difference between them conveys.
在一般美式英语中,有几对单词的区别仅在于一个单词带有 [d],而另一个单词带有 [ð]:den [d ɛ n] 和[ ð ɛ n]、eider [a ɪ d ə r] 和either [a ɪ ð ə r]、bade [bed] 和bathe [beð]。在单词中同一位置上只有一个声音不同的单词对被称为最小对。(如果你把其中一个发音为 [ið ə r],那么你就得到了一个接近最小对——两个几乎完全相同的单词。)最小对的存在意味着两个声音之间的差异是对比性的;把一个声音变成另一个声音,你就创造了一个意义的对比(也就是说,你造了一个不同的词)。如果两个声音是对比性的,它们的分布是不可预测的。如果我告诉你我正在想一个与when押韵的英语单词,并且以 [d] 或 [ð] 开头,您无法预测我想到的是哪个声音(或单词)。回顾表 1.1和1.3,它们给出了英语中不同声音的许多最小和接近最小对的例子。
In General American English, there are several pairs of words that differ only in that one has [d] where the other has [ð]: den [dɛn] and then [ðɛn], eider [aɪdər] and either [aɪðər], bade [bed] and bathe [beð]. Pairs of words that differ in only a single sound in the same position within the word are called minimal pairs. (If you pronounce either as [iðər], then you have a near-minimal pair – two words that are almost exactly alike.) The existence of minimal pairs means that the difference between the two sounds is contrastive; change one sound into another and you’ve created a contrast in meaning (that is, you’ve made a different word). If two sounds are contrastive, their distribution is unpredictable. If I tell you I’m thinking of an English word that rhymes with when, and starts with either [d] or [ð], you cannot predict which sound (or word) I have in mind. Look back at Tables 1.1 and 1.3, which give many examples of minimal and near-minimal pairs for different sounds in English.
现在将其与西班牙语的情况进行比较:
Now compare this to the situation in Spanish:
| [达玛] | '女士' |
| [恶魔] | ‘恶魔’ |
| [杜尔斯] | '甜的' |
| [disfɾ as ] | '伪装' |
| [拉多] | '边' |
| [大学] | '大学' |
| [合并] | '无效的' |
| [格林纳达] | “格林纳达” |
| [其他] | '城市' |
请注意,[d] 和 [ð] 在西班牙语中的分布不同。没有最小对——没有 [ðama] 与 [dama] 对立,没有 [lado] 与 [laðo] 对立。[d] 和 [ð] 之间的差异不是对比性的;[d] 与 [ð] 的差异在西班牙语中从未用于表示含义上的差异。相反,这两个声音具有不同的分布:只有 [d] 出现在起始位置,只有 [ð] 出现在元音后面。分布是可预测的。如果你知道上下文(单词中的位置或周围的声音),你可以预测 [d] 或 [ð] 会是用过的。
Notice that [d] and [ð] have a different distribution in Spanish. There are no minimal pairs – no [ðama] contrasting with [dama], no [lado] contrasting with [laðo]. The difference between [d] and [ð] is not contrastive; the [d] versus [ð] difference is never used in Spanish to signal a difference in meaning. Instead, the two sounds have different distributions: only [d] is found in initial position, and only [ð] is found following a vowel. The distribution is predictable. If you know the context (the position in the word, or the surrounding sounds), you can predict whether [d] or [ð] will be used.
当根据上下文可以预测两个不同的声音的发生时,我们说这两个声音是互补分布。(不是“好”意义上的“互补”,而是数学意义上的“互补”,即圆的一半是另一半的补音。)在西班牙语中,[d] 和 [ð] 的声音是互补分布的。(当考虑词首和词后以外的上下文时,情况会稍微复杂一些,但互补分布的原理是成立的。例如,[n] 后面只有 [d],[r] 后面只有 [ð]。)
When the occurrence of two different sounds is predictable based on the context, we say that the two sounds are in complementary distribution. (Not “complimentary” in the sense of “nice,” but “complementary” in the mathematical sense that one half of a circle is the complement of the other half.) The sounds [d] and [ð] are in complementary distribution in Spanish. (The situation is slightly more complicated when contexts other than word-initial and postvocalic are considered, but the principle of complementary distribution holds. There is only [d] after [n], for instance, and only [ð] after [r].)
当一种语言中的两个声音形成最小对(即,如果它们的分布不可预测且具有对比性)时,这两个声音代表不同的音素。当一种语言中的两个声音呈互补分布(即,它们的分布可预测且不具有对比性)时,这两个声音是同一音素的变体。在英语中,[d] 和 [ð] 代表不同的音素。在西班牙语中,[d] 和 [ð] 是同一音素的变体。
When two sounds in a language form minimal pairs (that is, if their distribution is unpredictable and contrastive), those two sounds represent different phonemes. When two sounds in a language are in complementary distribution (that is, their distribution is predictable and noncontrastive), the two sounds are allophones of the same phoneme. In English, [d] and [ð] represent different phonemes. In Spanish [d] and [ð] are allophones of the same phoneme.
另一种说法是,音素是说话者认为是“相同”声音的一组声音的标签,而音位变体是根据产生该声音的上下文而发出的不同方式。对于西班牙语使用者来说,如果他/她稍加注意的话, [ð] 就是“一种说d的方式”。该语言的使用者知道什么时候需要 [d] 音位变体,什么时候适合使用 [ð] 音位变体。如果您正在学习西班牙语作为第二语言,您可能已经学过这种分布规则,例如“在元音之间,音 [d] 发音为 [ð]”。英语中没有将 [d] 和 [ð] 联系起来的规则。它们是独立的音素。
Another way to say this is that a phoneme is a label for a group of sounds that are perceived by the speaker to be the “same” sound, and the allophones are the different ways of pronouncing that sound depending upon the context in which it is produced. To the Spanish speaker, if he/she pays any conscious attention at all, [ð] is just “a way of saying d.” A speaker of the language knows when the [d] allophone is called for and when the [ð] allophone is appropriate. If you’re learning Spanish as a second language, you may have been taught this distribution as a rule, something like “the sound [d] is pronounced as [ð] between vowels.” There is no such rule relating [d] and [ð] in English. They are separate phonemes.
我们可以将这种情况描绘如下:
We may diagram the situation as follows:
音素用斜线表示,而同位音用括号表示。在同位音层面,英语和西班牙语的声音相同。在音素层面,英语有对比,而西班牙语没有对比。
Phonemes are indicated by slashes, while allophones are indicated by brackets. At the allophonic level, English and Spanish have the same sounds. At the phonemic level, English has a contrast where Spanish has none.
音位和同位音分布的差异给正在学习说另一种语言的人们带来了重大问题。以西班牙语为母语的人在学习英语时会很难区分den和then。对他/她来说,[d] 和 [ð] 算作同一个声音,所以他/她会倾向于这样听,并根据自己语言的原则来发音。西班牙语使用者可能倾向于将then说成 [d ɛ n] (使用词首同位音),将adder说成 [æðe.] (使用元音间的同位音)。这些不是随机错误,而是将第一语言的音系组织强加到第二语言单词上的结果 第二。
Differences in phonemic and allophonic distribution pose significant problems for speakers of one language who are learning to speak another. A native speaker of Spanish learning English will have trouble with the distinction between den and then. To him/her, [d] and [ð] count as the same sound, so he/she will tend to hear them that way, and to pronounce them according to the principles of his/her own language. A Spanish speaker may tend to say [dɛn] for then (using the word-initial allophone), and [æðe.] for adder (using the intervocalic allophone). These are not random errors, but a result of imposing the phonological organization of the first language onto the words of the second.
本节将通过一个示例来说明如何确定声音属于一个或多个音素。本章末尾的练习中提供了更多练习示例。
In this section, we work through an example illustrating how to determine whether sounds belong to one or more phonemes. More practice examples can be found in the exercises at the end of the chapter.
分析必须从一些数据开始。要从头开始,语言学家必须找到所研究语言的使用者或使用者群体,询问单词和单词含义,然后转录它们。为了节省时间,我们将跳过第一步,然后假设数据已经准确收集。此外,在教科书练习中,由于时间和空间非常有限,读者必须相信作者选择的示例词具有代表性。在实际分析中,需要更大的数据集。
An analysis must begin with some data. To start from scratch, a linguist would have to find a speaker or group of speakers of the language under investigation, ask for words and word meanings, and transcribe them. In the interests of time, we’ll skip step one and assume that data have already been accurately collected. Further, in textbook exercises like this one, where available time and space is severely limited, the reader has to trust that the author has chosen the example words to be representative. In a real analysis, larger data sets would be required.
人们可能想知道如何研究手语的音系学,因为音系学是研究声音的学科,而手语的媒介是非听觉的。然而,研究手语的语言学家已经注意到,手势中存在内部结构,非常类似于口语中音素的发音特征。每个手势都有三个同时存在的组成部分:手势形状、动作和位置。事实上,这三个组成部分的最小对数与口语中的最小对数非常相似。例如,糖果和苹果的手势仅在手势形状上有所不同;两者都放在下巴处并来回旋转手。糖果的手握紧,食指指向下巴,而苹果的手完全握紧。丑陋和夏天的手势和动作都相同,但手势位置不同。 火车和椅子的手势和位置相同,但动作不同。请注意,这些词对之间没有语义相似性,就像英语中的pat和pad没有意义对应一样。手势的意义是任意的(尽管有些手势是从标志性手势演变而来的)。(有关手势语音位理论的进一步讨论, 请参阅 Sandler 和 Lillo-Martin 2006。 )
One might wonder how it could be possible to study the phonology of sign language, since phonology is the study of sounds and the medium of sign language is non-auditory. However, linguists studying sign language have noted that there is internal structure in a sign much like the articulatory features proposed for phonemes in spoken languages. Each sign has three simultaneous components: a hand shape, movement, and a location. Indeed, there are minimal pairs with respect to these three components much like those in spoken language. For instance, the signs for candy and apple differ only in hand shape; both are placed at the chin and rotate the hand back and forth. Candy has a closed hand with the index finger pointing to the chin, while apple has a completely closed hand shape. Ugly and summer both have the same hand shapes and movement, but they are signed in a different location. Train and chair both have the same hand shape and location but a different movement. Notice that there is no semantic similarity between the pairs of words, just as pat and pad in English have no meaning correspondence. The signs are arbitrary in relation to the meaning (although there are some signs that have evolved from iconic signs). (See Sandler and Lillo-Martin 2006 for further discussion on phonological theories of sign language.)
收集数据后,音位分析的第二步是确定一组可能被视为“相同”的声音。之所以选择这些声音,可能是因为它们相似,因为它们在许多其他语言中彼此相关,或者因为语言学家注意到他们怀疑这些声音的分布有限,是互补的。在这里,我们研究了斯瓦希里语中 [ ɔ ] 和 [o] 的分布(数据来自 Gleason 1955)。在表 1.5中,包含两个元音的斯瓦希里语单词分为两列,左侧是 [ ɔ ] 的单词,右侧是 [o] 的单词。有些单词同时包含这两个元音。
After the data have been collected, the second step in a phonemic analysis is to identify a set of sounds that are suspected to count as “the same.” They might be chosen because they are similar, because they have turned out to be related to each other in a number of other languages, or because the linguist notices a limited distribution that he/she suspects is complementary. Here, we examine the distribution of [ɔ] and [o] in Swahili (the data are from Gleason 1955). In Table 1.5, Swahili words containing the two vowels are listed in two columns, words with [ɔ] on the left and words with [o] on the right. Some words contain both.
| ŋ g ɔ ma | 鼓 | 瓦托托 | 孩子们 |
| b ɔ ma | 堡 | 恩多托 | 梦 |
| ŋɔ mbe | 牛 | 姆博加 | 蔬菜 |
| 工商管理硕士 | 祈祷 | 多哥 | 公鸡 |
| ɔ na | 看 | ʃ奥卡 | 斧头 |
| 一 | 治愈 | 奥科塔 | 捡起 |
| 一个 | 护士 | 摩登 | 一 |
| ɔɲ d ʒ a | 品尝 | 姆特戈 | 陷阱 |
| ɔŋ格扎 | 增加 | 韋恩多 | 羊 |
| ɲɔŋ ga | 扼杀 | kar ɔŋ go | 洗脱 |
收集并整理好数据集后,我们开始寻找模式。首先,寻找最小对。如果能找到,分析就完成了:这两个声音是对比性的,因此一定属于不同的音素。在这里,我们没有找到最小对:没有 [boma] 来匹配现有的单词 [b ɔ ma];没有 [ ʃɔ ka] 来匹配单词 [ ʃ oka]。所以我们怀疑 [o] 和 [ ɔ ]的分布可能可以通过上下文预测。那么,下一步就是仔细观察每个声音出现的环境。列出每种情况下紧接在前面和后面的声音会有所帮助:这有助于将注意力集中在单词中最有可能相关的部分。查看紧接在前面的声音并不总是有效——有时声音会在一定距离外相互影响——但这是一个很好的起点。这在表 1.6中完成,其中空白表示每个声音的出现。符号# 表示单词的边缘,因此#__ 表示词首音,__# 表示词尾音。
Having collected and organized our data set, we proceed to search for patterns. First, look for minimal pairs. If any can be found, the analysis is finished: the two sounds are contrastive and therefore must belong to different phonemes. Here, we find no minimal pairs: there is no [boma] to match the existing word [bɔma]; no [ʃɔka] to match the word [ʃoka]. So we suspect that that the distribution of [o] and [ɔ] may be predictable by context. The next step, then, is to look closely at the environments in which each sound occurs. It can be helpful to list out the immediately preceding and following sounds in each case: this helps to focus on the part of the word most likely to be relevant. Looking at immediately adjacent sounds doesn’t always work – sometimes sounds can affect each other from some distance away – but it’s a good place to start. This is done in Table 1.6, where a blank indicates the occurrence of each sound. The symbol # indicates the edge of a word, so that #__ indicates a word-initial sound, and __# indicates a word-final sound.
| [ ɔ ] | [劑] |
| 米 | t___t |
| 大写 | d___t |
| ŋ ___m | 体重 |
| #___ 米 | d ʒ ___g |
| #___ n | ʃ ___k |
| 鳴 | 頁面 |
| ɲ ___ ɲ | 日期 |
| #___ ɲ | ___# |
| #___ ŋ | d___# |
| r___ ŋ | #___千 |
| 韓 | t___# |
查看表 1.6中的列表。尝试确定一个列表中的所有环境是否有共同点,但另一个列表中没有出现。有时模式会突然出现(就像这里可能出现的那样);有时需要多加思考和努力。前面的声音似乎没有任何系统性的东西可以决定这个数据集中不同元音的选择。这两个列表都包含各种前面的鼻音和浊音和清音。特别是,[o] 和 [ ɔ ] 都可以跟在 [g] 后面,并且都可以出现在单词的开头。所以我们不能根据前面的声音预测会出现哪个元音。
Look at the lists in Table 1.6. Try to determine whether there’s anything that all the environments in one list have in common, but that doesn’t occur in the other list. Sometimes the pattern jumps out at you (as it probably does here); sometimes a little more thought and work is needed. There doesn’t seem to be anything systematic about the preceding sound that could condition the choice of a different vowel in this data set. Both lists contain a variety of preceding nasals and voiced and voiceless consonants. Particularly, both [o] and [ɔ] can follow [g], and both can occur at the beginning of a word. So we can’t predict which vowel will occur based on preceding sound.
另一方面,元音后面的声音有规律。元音 [ ɔ ] 只出现在 [m、n、ɲ或ŋ ] 之前,而元音 [o] 从不出现在这些辅音之前。这确定这两个声音处于互补分布状态。由于这两个声音处于互补分布状态,我们得出结论,它们属于同一个音素。
On the other hand, there is a pattern to the sounds that follow the vowel. The vowel [ɔ] only occurs before [m, n, ɲ, or ŋ], and the vowel [o] never occurs before any of these consonants. This establishes that the two sounds are in complementary distribution. Because the two sounds are in complementary distribution, we conclude that they belong to the same phoneme.
为了完成分析,我们需要说明哪些音位变体出现在何处的规则。说 [ ɔ ] 出现在 [m, n, ɲ , ŋ ] 之前,而 [o] 出现在 [t, d, k, g] 之前且位于词尾位置,是正确的,但仅仅给出一个声音列表会遗漏一些东西。音系分布很少(如果有的话)依赖于没有共同点的随机声音列表。音系分布依赖于自然类:具有共同点的声音集。声音 [m, n, ɲ , ŋ ] 具有共同点:它们都是鼻辅音。补集 [t, d, k, g, #] 没有任何共同属性:我们可以将其称为“其他地方的情况”。因此,我们可以如下表述我们的分析:[o] 和 [ ɔ ]在斯瓦希里语中处于互补分布,并且是一个音素的同位异音:[ ɔ ] 出现在鼻辅音之前,[o] 出现在其他地方。如图 1.9所示:
To complete the analysis, we need to state the rule for which allophones occur where. It would be correct to say that [ɔ] occurs before [m, n, ɲ, ŋ], and [o] occurs before [t, d, k, g] and in word-final position, but to just give a list of sounds is missing something. Phonological distributions seldom, if ever, depend on random lists of sounds with nothing in common. Phonological distributions depend on natural classes: sets of sounds that have something in common. The sounds [m, n, ɲ, ŋ] have something in common: they are all nasal consonants. The complement set [t, d, k, g, #] doesn’t have any property in common: we can call this the “elsewhere case.” Thus, we can state our analysis as follows: [o] and [ɔ] are in complementary distribution and allophones of one phoneme in Swahili: [ɔ] occurs before nasal consonants, [o] occurs elsewhere. This is diagrammed in Figure 1.9:
这个模式可以重新表述为一个概括:音素 /o/在鼻音前 发音为 [ ɔ ]。
The pattern can be restated as a generalization: the phoneme /o/ is pronounced [ɔ] before nasals.
请注意,我选择将音素标记为 /o/ 而不是 / ɔ /。在可能的范围内,语言学家会选择限制较少的变体(其他地方的情况)作为“基本形式”,而限制较多的变体作为“派生形式”。(出现在更多环境中并不一定意味着出现在更多单词中。[o] 和 [ ɔ ] 出现在斯瓦希里语单词列表中的词汇数量相等。)当选择其他地方的情况作为基本形式时,陈述概括会更简单。语句 a比语句b更简单:
Note that I’ve chosen to label the phoneme as /o/ rather than /ɔ/. To the extent that it’s possible, a linguist will choose the less restricted variant (the elsewhere case) as the “basic form,” and the more restricted variant as the “derived form.” (Occurring in more environments doesn’t necessarily mean occurring in more words. [o] and [ɔ] occur in an equal number of lexical items in this list of Swahili words.) It’s simpler to state a generalization when the elsewhere case is chosen as the basic form. Statement a is simpler than statement b:
| 一个。 |
/o/ 在鼻音之前变成 [ ɔ ]。 /o/ becomes [ɔ] before nasals. |
| b. |
/ ɔ / 在非鼻辅音前或词尾变成 [o]。 /ɔ/ becomes [o] before non-nasal consonants or at the end of a word. |
并不总是能够明确地选择一个环境作为其他情况,但在所有条件相同的情况下,更简单的分析总是首选。人们应该始终尝试使分析尽可能简单和通用,并与数据保持一致。
It’s not always possible to definitively choose one environment as the elsewhere case, but all things being equal, the simpler analysis is always to be preferred. One should always try to make the analysis as simple and general as possible, consistent with the data.
上面的例子表明,在英语中具有对比性的区别在另一种语言中并不具有对比性。当然,反之亦然。考虑泰语和英语中无声塞音的情况。
The example above shows a case where a distinction that is contrastive in English is not contrastive in another language. The reverse occurs too, of course. Consider the case of voiceless stops in Thai and English.
清塞音([p]、[t] 或 [k])的发音可以带或不带额外的气流,这叫做送气。在英语中,如果在说pop或pill时将指尖放在嘴唇前一英寸左右,则可以感觉到送气。但是在spot或sprinkle中,[s] 之后的 [p] 不会感到送气。在英语中,带额外气流的塞音是送气的,不带额外气流的塞音是不送气的。泰语和英语的使用者都会发出一整套送气清塞音 [p h, t h, k h ] 和不送气清塞音 [p, t, k]。虽然清塞音的清单相同,但不同语言使用清单的方式不同。下面列出使用这些声音的一些泰语和英语单词。
A voiceless stop ([p], [t], or [k]) may be produced with or without an extra puff of air, called aspiration. In English, you can feel the aspiration if you hold your fingertips an inch or so in front of your lips as you say pop or pill. But you won’t feel any aspiration for a [p] that occurs after [s] as in spot or spill. In English, stops produced with an extra puff of air are aspirated, those without the extra puff are unaspirated. Speakers of both Thai and English produce a full set of aspirated voiceless stops [ph, th, kh] and unaspirated voiceless stops [p, t, k]. Though the inventory of voiceless stops is the same, the languages use the inventory in different ways. Some Thai and English words using these sounds are shown below.
在泰语中,送气是对比性的。[p] 和 [p h ]之间的差异导致含义不同,因此很容易找到送气塞音和不送气塞音的最小对(例如 [p h àt] 和 [pàt])。[p] 和 [p h ] 是两个不同的音素,[t] 和 [t h ] 以及 [k] 和 [k h ] 也是如此。
In Thai, aspiration is contrastive. The difference between [p] and [ph] makes a difference in meaning, and thus minimal pairs with aspirated and unaspirated stops (such as [phàt] and [pàt]) are easy to find. [p] and [ph] are two different phonemes, as are [t] and [th], and [k] and [kh].
然而,英语中没有最小送气对。送气从来都不是两个单词之间的唯一区别。相反,我们可以预测英语中的塞音是否单词会根据上下文送气或不送气。在单词开头,清塞音会送气;在 /s/ 之后,清塞音会不送气。在英语中,单个音素 /p/ 有两个音位变体:[p] 和 [p h ]。
There are, however, no minimal pairs for aspiration in English. Aspiration is never the only difference between two words. Instead, we can predict whether a stop in an English word will be aspirated or unaspirated depending on its context. At the beginning of a word, a voiceless stop will be aspirated; after /s/, it will be unaspirated. In English, the single phoneme /p/ has two allophones: [p] and [ph].
英语中送气的音位变体性质反映在正字法中。英语没有为这两个音(例如 [p] 和 [p h ])提供两个不同的书写符号,而泰语有。英语使用者需要经过一番说服才能相信sport和port中的p音在语音上并不相同。对他/她来说,它们算作相同,因为它们是单个音素的音位变体。泰语使用者不需要这样的说服。对他/她来说,[p] 和 [p h ] 就像 [t] 和 [t] 一样不同。[k].
The allophonic nature of aspiration in English is reflected in the orthography. English doesn’t have two different written symbols for these two sounds (for [p] and [ph], for example), whereas Thai does. An English speaker needs a lot of convincing to believe that the p sounds in sport and port are not phonetically identical. To him/her, they count as the same, because they are allophones of a single phoneme. The Thai speaker needs no such convincing. To him/her, [p] and [ph] are as different as [t] and [k].
语音学家在描述一种未知语言时,首先要弄清楚的是该语言的声音清单:该语言使用什么声音?但他/她想弄清楚的第二件事是该语言使用哪些声音差异来编码单词之间的差异:音素是什么?接下来,语音学家试图通过识别可预测的互补分布模式来找出每个音素的不同音位变体。回答有关语言中声音的对比和可预测性的问题是语音学的主要工作。
The first thing a phonologist working to describe a previously unknown language wants to figure out is its inventory of sounds: what sounds does the language use? But the second thing he/she wants to figure out is which sound differences the language uses to encode differences between words: what are the phonemes? Next, a phonologist tries to figure out the different allophones of each phoneme by identifying predictable patterns of complementary distribution. Answering questions about contrast and predictability of sounds in a language is the main work of phonology.
语言不允许声音随机排列;相反,语言允许的声音序列是其结构的系统的和可预测的一部分。语言有音位学限制——对允许相邻出现或在单词中的特定位置出现的声音类型有限制。例如,在英语中,没有单词以序列 [tl] 开头。有 train和plane这样的单词,但没有tlane。这个序列完全可以发音,并且在其他语言中也出现过(例如纳瓦霍语 [tlee]‘night’)。如果两个声音在不同的音节中,例如At.lan.tic ,则该序列可以出现在英语中。但英语有音位学限制:* tl(“ tl是非法的”)在音节开头——因此也出现在单词开头。(星号用于指示在特定语言中不可能出现的任何序列。)
Languages do not allow random sequences of sounds; rather, the sound sequences a language allows are a systematic and predictable part of its structure. Languages have phonotactic constraints – restrictions on the types of sounds that are allowed to occur next to each other or in particular positions in the word. In English, for example, no word begins with the sequence [tl]. There are words like train and plane, but no tlane. This sequence is perfectly pronounceable and occurs in other languages (e.g. Navajo [tlee] ‘night’). The sequence can occur in English if the two sounds are in different syllables, as in At.lan.tic. But English has a phonotactic constraint: *tl (“t-l is illicit”) at the beginning of a syllable – and therefore at the beginning of a word, as well. (The asterisk is used to indicate any sequence that is not possible in a given language.)
英语的另一个音位限制限制了双元音 [a ʊ ]后面可以发出的声音。我们有许多单词,例如out、crowd、town、mouse、couch、south和rouse。但是没有单词* aup、* auk、* aub、* awm、* aug等。如果你列出所有你能想到的 [a ʊ ] 单词,你会发现 [a ʊ ]后面可以发出的声音只能是用舌尖和舌叶发出的声音:[t]、[d]、[s]、[z]、[n]、[ θ ]、[ð]、[ ʧ ]、[ ʤ ](如果将owl和hour作为一个音节发声,则可能还有 [l] 和 [r] )。因此,表达这种英语音位约束的一种方式是“双元音 [a ʊ ] 后面只能跟着 [t]、[d]、[s]、[z]、[n]、[ θ ]、[ð]、[ ʧ ]、[ ʤ ]”。但我们可以做得更好。我们想要捕捉到这样的概括:这些声音不是随机的列表,而是都具有一些共同的属性。表达这种约束的更好方法是“双元音 [a ʊ ] 后面只能跟着用舌头前部发出的辅音。”音位约束很少(如果有的话)针对随机的声音集合。相反,它们几乎总是针对具有一个或多个共同语音属性的声音组。这样的组被称为自然类别。
Another phonotactic constraint of English limits the sounds that are allowed to follow the diphthong [aʊ]. We have many words like out, crowd, town, mouse, couch, south, and rouse. But there are no words *aup, *auk, *aub, *awm, *aug, etc. If you make a list of all the [aʊ] words you can think of, you will discover that the only sounds allowed to follow [aʊ] are those made with the tongue tip and blade: [t], [d], [s], [z], [n], [θ], [ð], [ʧ], [ʤ] (and possibly [l] and [r], if you say owl and hour as one syllable). So one way of stating this English phonotactic constraint would be “The diphthong [aʊ] can only be followed by [t], [d], [s], [z], [n], [θ], [ð], [ʧ], [ʤ].” But we can do better. We want to capture the generalization that these sounds are not a random list, but all share some property. A better way to state this constraint is “The diphthong [aʊ] can only be followed by a consonant made with the tongue front.” Phonological constraints seldom (if ever) target random collections of sounds. Rather, they almost always target groups of sounds that have one or more phonetic properties in common. Such groups are called natural classes.
跨语言最常见的音位限制之一是“鼻音必须与下列发音一致停止。”想想那些有序列的英语单词鼻音 + 口塞音:camp,hamper,bombard,paint,intelligent,wind,window。虽然也有一些例外,但一般的模式是双唇塞音 [p] 和 [b] 前面是双唇鼻音 [m],而齿龈塞音 [t] 和 [d] 前面是齿龈鼻音 [n]。那么带有 [k] 和 [g] 的单词呢?我们将这些单词拼写为nk和ng ,但如果你仔细听自己对think和linguistics等单词的发音,你会发现这些序列实际上是 [ ŋ k] 和 [ ŋ g] (软腭鼻音 [ ŋ ] 位于软腭塞音 [k] 和 [g] 之前),因此也遵循该限制。 (许多拼写以ng结尾的单词,例如sing和rang,实际上仅以鼻音 [ ŋ ] 结尾,而根本没有 [g] 塞音。)
One of the most common phonotactic constraints across languages is “Nasals must agree in place of articulation with a following stop.” Think of English words that have a sequence of nasal + oral stop: camp, hamper, bombard, paint, intelligent, wind, window. Though there are some exceptions, the general pattern is for the bilabial stops [p] and [b] to be preceded by the bilabial nasal [m] and for the alveolar stops [t] and [d] to be preceded by the alveolar nasal [n]. What about words with [k] and [g]? We spell these words nk and ng, but if you listen carefully to your pronunciation of words like think and linguistics, you’ll realize that these sequences are really [ŋk] and [ŋg] (the velar nasal [ŋ] preceding the velar stops [k] and [g]), and thus also follow the constraint. (Many words whose spelling ends in ng, like sing and rang, actually end in just the nasal [ŋ], with no [g] stop at all.)
有许多不同的语音维度可以定义自然类别。浊音在音位约束中通常很重要。一个常见的约束是,阻塞音序列必须全部浊音或全部清音。在俄语中有 [vzbut ʃ ki] ‘责骂’ 和 [fspleska] ‘泼’ 等词,但没有* [fzput ʃ gi]。英语中有 [s ɪ ks θ s],但没有* [s ɪ ks θ z]。在日语本土词中(从中文或其他语言借来的词除外),每个词只能有一个浊音阻塞音。因此,有 [saki]“酒”,[kaze]“风”,[zaseki]“座位”(每个词都有一个或多个清音阻塞音),但没有* [gaze] 或* [guda]。
There are many different phonetic dimensions that can define natural classes. Voicing is often important in phonotactic constraints. A common constraint is that sequences of obstruents must be either all voiced or all voiceless. In Russian, there are words like [vzbutʃki] ‘scolding’ and [fspleska] ‘splash,’ but not *[fzputʃgi]. In English, we have [sɪksθs], but not *[sɪksθz]. In native Japanese words (borrowings from Chinese or other languages are exempt), there can be only one voiced obstruent per word. So there are words like [saki] ‘wine,’ [kaze] ‘wind,’ and [zaseki] ‘seat’ (each with one or more voiceless obstruents), but there is no *[gaze] or *[guda].
音位限制通常与音节结构有关。许多语言都对它们允许的音节类型有所限制。所有语言都允许 CV(辅音-元音)类型的音节 - 即有声母和音节核心,但没有尾音。这是标记最少且最常见的音节类型。有些语言,如西非语言Senufo,只允许使用 CV 音节。对 CV 音节的偏好源于两个音位学限制:“音节必须有首音”(V 前有一个 C)和“音节不能有尾音”(V 后没有 C)。
Phonotactic constraints are often related to syllable structure. Many languages put constraints on the types of syllables they will allow. All languages allow syllables of the CV (Consonant–Vowel) type – that is, with an onset and a nucleus, but without a coda. This is the least marked and most common type of syllable. Some languages, like the West African language Senufo, allow only CV syllables. The preference for CV syllables results from two phonotactic constraints: “Syllables must have onsets” (a C before the V), and “Syllables must not have codas” (no C after the V).
有些语言只有其中一个限制。例如,夏威夷语不允许使用尾音,但允许使用没有声母的音节。因此,它允许使用 V 和 CV 类型的音节,但绝不允许使用 CVC 类型的音节。夏威夷语还以拥有最小的音节库而闻名 – 只有五个元音 [i、e、a、o、u] 和八个辅音 [p、k、?、l、w、n、m、h]。这样一共有 45 个可能的音节(5 个 V 和 40 个 CV 组合)来编码该语言中的数千个单词。如何使用 45 个音节来组成数千个单词?夏威夷语单词可以非常非常长,并且有很多重复!例如,该州的鱼被称为 [hu.mu.hu.mu.nu.ku.nu.ku.a.pu.a. ʔ a]。请注意,每个音节都是 CV 或 V,并且 [ ʔ ] 起常规辅音的作用。
Some languages have only one of these constraints. Hawai‘ian, for example, does not allow codas, but does allow syllables that don’t have onsets. Therefore, it allows syllables of the type V and CV, but never CVC. Hawai‘an is also famous for having one of the smallest segmental inventories around – only five vowels [i, e, a, o, u] and eight consonants [p, k, ?, l, w, n, m, h]. That gives a grand total of 45 possible syllables (5 V and 40 CV combinations) to encode the thousands of words in the language. How do you use 45 syllables to make thousands of words? Hawai‘ian words can be very, very long, with lots of repetition! The state fish, for example, is called the [hu.mu.hu.mu.nu.ku.nu.ku.a.pu.a.ʔa]. Note that every syllable is either CV or V, and that [ʔ] functions as a regular consonant.
其他语言允许使用 CV 和 CVC,但不允许使用 VC。这些语言中的每个音节都必须有首音。阿拉伯语和德语属于这种类型。书面上以元音开头的单词实际上是用初始喉塞音——例如,德语中的[ ʔ apf ɛ l] '苹果',阿拉伯语中的 [ ʔ al] '这个'。
Other languages allow CV and CVC but not VC. Every syllable in these languages must have an onset. Arabic and German are languages of this type. Words that are spelled with initial vowels in writing are actually pronounced with an initial glottal stop – for example, [ʔapfɛl] ‘apple’ in German, and [ʔal] ‘the’ in Arabic.
许多允许音节有尾音的语言(CVC 和 VC)限制了可以出现在那里的声音。这些限制被称为尾音约束。在泰语中,[p]、[p h ] 和 [b] 可以出现在声母中,但只有 [p] 可以出现在尾音中。在日语中,唯一允许的尾音辅音是鼻音或双音节的前半部分:[nip.pon]“日本”,[ ʃ im.bun]“报纸”,[gak.ko]“学校”。声母有限制(例如英语的声母中没有 [ ŋ ]),但这种情况要少见得多。最后,许多语言最多允许尾音中有一个辅音,声母中也有一个辅音。英语很少允许使用 CCVCC 甚至 CCCCVCCC 词,例如shrink或sprints。俄语单词如 [fspleska](连续四个辅音)则更为少见。
Many languages that allow syllables to have codas (CVC and VC) limit the sounds that can occur there. These restrictions are called coda constraints. In Thai, [p], [ph], and [b] may occur in onsets, but only [p] may appear in the coda. In Japanese, the only coda consonants allowed are nasals or the first half of geminates: [nip.pon] ‘Japan,’ [ʃim.bun] ‘newspaper,’ [gak.ko] ‘school.’ Constraints on onsets exist (e.g. no [ŋ] in onsets in English), but are much rarer. Finally, many languages allow at most one consonant in the coda and one in the onset. English is rather rare in allowing CCVCC, or even CCCVCCC words, like shrink or sprints. Russian words like [fspleska] (four consonants in a row) are rarer still.
音位定位当一种受限制较多的语言从一种受限制较少的语言中借用一个词时,限制往往会产生有趣的形式。例如,日本从美国借用了棒球比赛,以及许多与之相关的术语。但英语棒球术语必须适应日语的音节限制。一种常见的策略是插入额外的元音来分解辅音群,并将尾音变成声母。因此, bat变成了 [bat.to],strike变成了 [su.to.rai.ku],baseball变成了 [be.su.bu.ro]。夏威夷语面临着声音库存受限和音节结构可能性有限的双重挑战。短语Merry Christmas在夏威夷语中变成了 [meli kalikimaki]。它看起来无法辨认,但你可以很容易地弄清楚:将 [r] 改为 [l],将 [s] 改为 [k],并根据需要添加元音。请注意,即使是英语使用者也不会发音[t]。
Phonotactic constraints often give rise to interesting forms when a more constrained language borrows a word from a less constrained language. Japan, for example, has borrowed the game of baseball from America, and many of the terms that go with it. But English baseball terms must be adapted to the syllable constraints of the Japanese language. A common strategy is to insert extra vowels to break up consonant clusters and turn codas into onsets. So bat becomes [bat.to], strike becomes [su.to.rai.ku], and baseball becomes [be.su.bu.ro]. Hawai‘ian has the double challenge of a restricted inventory of sounds and limited syllable structure possibilities. The phrase Merry Christmas becomes [meli kalikimaki] in Hawai‘ian. It looks unrecognizable, but you can easily work it out: change [r] into [l], [s] into [k], and add vowels as needed. Note that even English speakers don’t pronounce the [t].
当然,英语对从其他语言借来的单词也采取同样的处理方式。我们将 futon读作[futon] 而不是 [ ɸ uton],将卡塔尔(阿拉伯语发音为 [qatar])读作cutter。在极少数情况下,我们会从一种允许比我们更多的音节类型的语言中借用单词,这时英语的策略往往是删除不合适的辅音,而不是插入额外的元音。例如,希腊语允许单词以 [pn] 和 [ps] 开头,如 [pneu]“呼吸”和 [psaike]“精神”。我们在拼写上 保留了肺炎和心理学等单词的希腊语起源,但没有保留发音。
Of course, English does the same with words it borrows from other languages. We pronounce futon as [futon] not [ɸuton], and the country of Qatar (pronounced, in Arabic, just like it’s spelled [qatar]) as cutter. In those rare cases where we borrow a word from a language that allows even more syllable types than we do, the English strategy tends to be to drop the offending consonants rather than insert extra vowels. Greek, for example, allows words to begin with [pn] and [ps] as in [pneu] ‘breath’ and [psaike] ‘spirit.’ We preserve the Greek origin of words like pneumonia and psychology in the spelling, but not the pronunciation.
音系学是关于对比和可预测性的。我们想知道一种语言中哪些声音是对比音素,我们希望能够预测不同音素在什么语境中音素的变体会出现。有时我们通过研究单词列表来发现不同类型的声音分布。有时我们观察借词的情况。另一种方法是研究交替。
Phonology is about contrast and predictability. We want to know what sounds in a language are contrastive phonemes, and we want to be able to predict the contexts in which the different allophones of a phoneme appear. Sometimes we do this by studying lists of words in order to discover different kinds of sound distributions. Sometimes we look at what happens to borrowed words. Another way is by studying alternations.
交替是指同一词素根据上下文以不同方式发音。词素是你心理词典中的任何条目;它可以是单词或单词的一部分,如前缀(添加到单词的开头)或后缀(添加到单词的末尾)。例如,在英语中,cat是一个词素,复数后缀 - s也是一个词素。当我们将不同的词素组合在一起以创建更大的单词时,我们会创建不同的上下文。根据上下文,会发音不同形式的词素,即不同的词形变体。当词素的组合创建了违反音位学的新环境时,相同的音位学限制(不允许词素内出现某些声音序列)也会导致交替限制。
An alternation is seen when the same morpheme is pronounced different ways depending on the context. A morpheme is any entry in your mental dictionary; it can be a word or a part of a word, like a prefix (added to the beginning of a word) or a suffix (added to the end of a word). For example, in English, cat is a morpheme, and so is the plural suffix -s. As we put different morphemes together to create larger words, we create different contexts. Depending on the context, different forms of the morpheme, different allomorphs, are pronounced. The same phonotactic constraints that disallow certain sequences of sounds within morphemes also give rise to alternations when the combination of morphemes creates new environments that violate phonotactic constraints.
我们已经看到,在英语的词素中,鼻音与随后的塞音的发音位置一致:remember camp、wind和think。因为这些鼻音位于单个词素中,所以我们从未看到过它们的发音方式的变化。但是,有些以鼻音结尾的英语前缀在添加到以不同声音开头的单词中时发音会有所不同。考虑否定前缀in -。在元音或齿龈音前,in - 发音为 [ ɪ n]:inedible、inaudible、indelible、inolerable、insufferable。但在双唇音 [m]、[b] 或 [p] 之前,它变成 [ ɪ m]:immovable、inbalance、irreparial。在 [k] 或 [g] 之前,发音为 [ ɪŋ ]。我们不改变拼写,因为英语没有单独的字母表示软腭鼻音,但听听你对像invalid 这样的单词的发音,你会发现鼻音是软腭而不是齿龈。音位约束“鼻音必须与随后的塞音一致”不仅适用于词素(如camp和wind),也适用于词素合二为一。
We saw that, within morphemes in English, nasals agree with the place of articulation of a following stop: remember camp, wind, and think. Because these nasals are within a single morpheme, we never see alternations in how they are pronounced. But some English prefixes that end with a nasal are pronounced differently when the prefix is added to words beginning with different sounds. Consider the negative prefix in-. Before a vowel or an alveolar, in- is pronounced [ɪn]: inedible, inaudible, indelible, intolerable, insufferable. But before the bilabials [m], [b], or [p], it becomes [ɪm]: immovable, imbalance, impartial. And before [k] or [g], it’s pronounced [ɪŋ]. We don’t change the spelling, because English doesn’t have a separate letter for the velar nasal, but listen to your pronunciation of a word like incorrect and you’ll realize the nasal is velar rather than alveolar. The phonotactic constraint “Nasals must agree in place of articulation with a following stop” applies not just within morphemes (like camp and wind) but also when morphemes are combined.
自然类别帮助我们定义要改变的声音集、改变本身以及改变发生的环境。这在以下情况下可以清楚地看到西班牙语发音停顿和上面描述的擦音。我们在那里注意到 /d/ 在西班牙语中有两个同位音:[d] 在起始位置,[ð] 跟在元音后面。但这种变化并不仅限于 /d/。它还影响 /b/ 和 /g/。每当浊塞音 [b, d, g] 跟在元音后面时,它就会变为相应的浊擦音 [ β ,ð, ɣ。
Natural classes help us to define the set of sounds that is targeted for alternation, the change itself, and the environments where the change takes place. This can be clearly seen in the case of the Spanish voiced stops and fricatives described above. We noted there that /d/ has two allophones in Spanish: [d] in initial position, and [ð] following a vowel. But the change is not limited to /d/ alone. It also affects /b/ and /g/. Whenever a voiced stop [b, d, g] follows a vowel, it changes to the corresponding voiced fricative [β, ð, ɣ].
| [巴塞罗那] | “巴塞罗那” | [a β阿塞洛纳] | “去巴塞罗那” |
| [流星锤] | '球' | [拉β奥拉] | “球” |
| [数据] | '日期' | [拉达塔] | ‘日期’ |
| [加塔] | ‘母猫’ | [拉ɣ ata] | “母猫” |
发生变化的声音集是一个自然类:浊音塞音。它们都经历了相同的变化;它们变成了浊擦音。变化发生的环境可以用一个语音参数来定义:在具有开放声道和连续气流的声音之后,如元音 [s] 和 [r]。
The set of sounds that undergoes change is a natural class: voiced stops. They all undergo the same change; they become voiced fricatives. And the environment in which the change occurs can be defined by a single phonetic parameter: after sounds that have an open vocal tract and continuous flow of air, like vowels, [s], and [r].
我们发现某些类型的音系过程在各种语言中反复出现。(请参阅第 8 章,从历时(跨时间)角度了解以下更多交替示例。)
There are certain types of phonological processes that we find over and over again across languages. (See Chapter 8 for more examples of the following alternations in a diachronic (across time) perspective.)
最常见的交替类型是同化:两个不同的声音变得更相似。同化可能是局部的,即两个声音彼此相邻,也可能是远距离的,即两个声音即使通过其他中间片段似乎也会相互影响。
The most common type of alternation is assimilation: two sounds that are different become more alike. Assimilation may be either local, when the two sounds are next to each other, or long-distance, where two sounds seem to affect each other even through other intervening segments.
浊化同化是跨语言的一种非常常见的变化。在英语中,复数后缀与前一个塞音一致:两只猫[kæts] 和两只狗[dagz]。另一个例子是俄语。俄语中表示“来自”的单词是 [ot] 或 [od]:[od vzbút ʃ ki] “来自责骂”,[ot fspléska] “来自水花”。
Voicing assimilation is one very common alternation across languages. In English, the plural suffix agrees in voicing with a previous stop: two cats [kæts] and two dogs [dagz]. Another example is seen in Russian. The Russian word for ‘from’ is either [ot] or [od]: [od vzbútʃki] ‘from a scolding,’ [ot fspléska] ‘from a splash.’
局部同化也可能影响发音部位。英语 中的否定前缀- 就是鼻音同化发音部位的例子,该部位发音部位与随后的塞音相似(不雅与不可能)。另一个例子来自西非语言特维语。
Local assimilation may also affect place of articulation. The English negative prefix in- is an example of a nasal assimilating in place of articulation to a following stop (indecent vs. impossible). Another example comes from Twi, a language of West Africa.
| 我-p ɛ | “我喜欢” | me-mp ɛ | “我不喜欢” |
| 我 | “我买” | 意思 | “我不买” |
| 梅卡 | “我说” | 我- ŋ -ka | “我没有说” |
这在特维语中表示‘不’的词素有三种不同的变体。它总是以鼻辅音的形式发出,但鼻音会取代它旁边的任何辅音的发音位置 – 双唇音旁边是双唇音,软腭音旁边是软腭音,等等。
The morpheme that means ‘not’ in Twi has three different allomorphs. It is always produced as a nasal consonant, but the nasal takes on the place of articulation of whatever consonant it’s next to – bilabial next to bilabial, velar next to velar, etc.
最极端的局部同化类型是完全同化:两个相邻的声音变得相同。许多西非语言都存在相邻元音的完全同化。在例如,约鲁巴语中 [ow o ]‘钱’加上 [ e po]‘石油’变成 [ow ee po]‘石油钱’。伊博语中,[nwok e ]“人”加上[ a ]“限定词”变成[nwo kaa ]“那个人”。英语前缀/ ɪn /在某些词中也可以完全同化。在大多数辅音前,鼻音只同化到发音位置,如inpartial。但在[l]或[r]之前,鼻音的同化是完全的:in + relevant变成irlevant,in + legible变成illegible。
The most extreme type of local assimilation is complete assimilation: two sounds that are next to each other become identical. Complete assimilation of adjacent vowels is found in many West African languages. In Yoruba, for example [owo] ‘money’ plus [epo] ‘oil’ becomes [oweepo] ‘oil money.’ In Igbo, [nwoke] ‘man’ plus [a] ‘determiner’ becomes [nwokaa] ‘that man.’ The English prefix /ɪn/ can also undergo complete assimilation in certain words. Before most consonants, the nasal assimilates just to the place of articulation, as in impartial. But before [l] or [r], the assimilation of the nasal is total: in + relevant becomes irrelevant, in + legible becomes illegible.
同化也可以发生在远距离。两个不直接相邻的音段可能会共享一些语音特性。元音和谐是长距离同化的典型例子。例如, 土耳其语中,单词中的元音必须全部在前或全部在后,高元音必须全部圆音或全部不圆音。因此,表示(大致)“of”的后缀具有不同的同位异形,具体取决于前一个音节中元音的质量:[ip-in]“绳索的”,[pul-un]“邮票的”。在和声系统中,即使辅音介入,元音也会相互同化。辅音和声也存在,尽管它们是更加稀有。
Assimilation can also take place long-distance. Two segments that are not immediately adjacent may come to share some phonetic property. Vowel harmony is the prime example of long-distance assimilation. For example, in Turkish, the vowels in a word must be all front or all back, and the high vowels must be all round or all unround. The suffix meaning (roughly) ‘of’ therefore has different allomorphs, depending on the quality of the vowel in the preceding syllable: [ip-in] ‘of the rope,’ [pul-un] ‘of the stamp.’ In harmony systems, the vowels assimilate to each other, even though consonants intervene. Consonant harmonies also exist, though they are rarer.
同化的反义词是异化。两个相似的发音变得不同。异化的动机之一可能是发音的容易程度。两个相似但不完全相同的发音似乎特别难以在相邻的位置正确发音。(这一原则构成了许多绕口令的基础,例如第六位酋长的第六只羊。)解决这个问题的一个方法是使相似的发音相同;另一个解决方案是使它们更加不同。异化的一个例子可以在历史中找到希腊语。在古希腊语中,表示学校的单词是 [sxolio],有两个相邻的清擦音。在现代希腊语中,它变成了 [skolio],取而代之的是擦音-塞音序列。异化也可能帮助听者意识到存在两个音段,而不仅仅是一个。在塞茨瓦纳语(在博茨瓦纳使用)中,浊塞音在(浊)鼻音后变为清音,也许是为了使塞音的存在更加明显:[bona]“see”变成[mpona]“see我。'
The opposite of assimilation is dissimilation. Two sounds that are similar become different. One impetus for dissimilation may be ease of articulation. Two sounds that are similar but not exactly the same seem to be particularly difficult to pronounce correctly right next to each other. (This principle forms the basis of many tongue twisters, such as the sixth sheik’s sixth sheep.) One solution to the problem would be to make the similar sounds identical; another solution is to make them more different. An example of dissimilation is found in the history of Greek. In Ancient Greek, the word for school was [sxolio], with two adjacent voiceless fricatives. In Modern Greek, this has become [skolio], with a fricative–stop sequence instead. Dissimilation may also help hearers to realize that two segments are present, not just one. In Setswana (spoken in Botswana), voiced stops become voiceless after a (voiced) nasal consonant, perhaps to make the presence of the stop more obvious: [bona] ‘see’ becomes [mpona] ‘see me.’
另一种常见的交替类型是插入(音系学家称之为插入音)。插入通常与音节结构有关,正如我们上面所见,插入元音来断开一连串的辅音。这种情况可能发生在外来词中(如日语和夏威夷语),也可能发生在词素组合在一起时。在英语中,当我们想在已经以 [s] 或 [z] 结尾的单词中添加复数后缀 [ z ] 时,我们会插入元音 [ ɨ ] 来断开两个高音擦音:一个 dress [dr ɛ s],两个 dress [dr ɛ s ɨ z]。
Another common type of alternation is insertion (which phonologists call epenthesis). Insertion is usually related to syllable structure, as we saw above, when vowels are inserted to break up strings of consonants. This can happen in loan words (as in Japanese and Hawai‘ian) or when morphemes come together. In English, when we want to add the plural suffix [z] to a word that already ends in [s] or [z], we insert a vowel [ɨ] to break up the two high-pitched fricatives: one dress [drɛs], two dresses [drɛsɨz].
当然,插入的反义词是删除。一种语言可能不是用元音打断辅音序列,而是选择删除其中一个辅音(如pneumonia中首字母 [p] 的消失)。Grand以 [nd] 结尾,mother以[m] 开头,但当两个单词放在一起时,中间的 [d] 通常会被删除:[grænm ʌ ð ə .]。([n] 可能会被同化为 [m],从而变成 [græmmm ʌ ð ə r]。)Lardil(一种澳大利亚语言)会删除三个或三个以上音节的单词的末尾元音:[yalulu] ‘flame’ 变成 [yalul]。
The opposite of insertion, of course, is deletion. Instead of breaking up a sequence of consonants with a vowel, a language may choose to delete one of the consonants (as in the loss of the initial [p] in pneumonia). Grand ends with [nd], mother starts with [m], but when the two words are put together, the medial [d] is usually deleted: [grænmʌðə.]. (The [n] may then assimilate to the [m], resulting in [græmmmʌðər].) Lardil (a language spoken in Australia) deletes final vowels from words of three or more syllables: [yalulu] ‘flame’ becomes [yalul].
另一种变化是声音减弱,即声音变得更柔和或更弱。停止更改为擦音,擦音变为近似值。西班牙语交替 [b, d, g] 变成 [ β , ð, ɣ ] 是轻化音的一个例子。轻化音的反义词是强化音。在这里,摩擦音变成塞音,例如基库尤语(东非)“鼻后硬化”:[ ɣ ora] '购买,' [ ŋ goreet ɛ ] '我已经买了。'
Another type of change is lenition – sounds become softer or weaker. Stops change to fricatives, fricatives change to approximants. The Spanish alternation [b, d, g] becomes [β, ð, ɣ] is an example of lenition. The opposite of lenition is fortition. Here, fricatives change into stops, as in Kikuyu (East Africa) “postnasal hardening”: [ɣora] ‘buy,’ [ŋgoreetɛ] ‘I have bought.’
其他不太常见的变化包括换位和重复。换位意味着改变声音的顺序。例如,英语单词horse曾经是 [hros],后来才变成 [ro] 序列。重复意味着复制。在英语中,我们有时会复制单词的一部分来传达贬义、小意思:teeny-tiny、itsy-bitsy,或者更轻蔑的syntax-schmintax。但在其他语言中,它是语音系统的常规组成部分。在Manam(南岛语),[gara] 的意思是“刮”,[gara-gara-si] 的意思是“刮”。您可能还记得夏威夷语 [humuhumunukunukuapua ʔ a] 和 Lardil [ ʧ umpu ʧ umpu]。
Other less common alternations include metathesis and reduplication. Metathesis means switching the order of sounds. For example, the English word horse used to be [hros], before the [ro] sequence was metathesized. Reduplication means copying. In English, we sometimes copy parts of words to convey a pejorative, diminutive sense: teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy, or the more dismissive syntax-schmintax. But in other languages it’s a regular part of the sound system. In Manam (Austronesian), [gara] means ‘scrape’ and [gara-gara-si] means ‘scraping it.’ You may also recall Hawai‘ian [humuhumunukunukuapuaʔa] and Lardil [ʧumpuʧumpu].
进行音位变换分析的第一步是确定需要考虑的词素的不同形式。英语中过去时后缀有三种形式:[t] 如reached [rit ʃ t]、[d] 如mowed [mo:d] 和 [ ɨ d] 如rotted [ra ɾɨ d]。表 1.7列出了带有每个后缀的各种单词。音标显示了未加后缀的动词的发音。(音标很宽泛,不包括与变换无关的非对比细节。)
The first step in doing an analysis of phonological alternation is to identify the different forms of the morpheme that need to be accounted for. The past-tense suffix in English has three forms: [t] as in reached [ritʃt], [d] as in mowed [mo:d], and [ɨd] as in rotted [raɾɨd]. Table 1.7 gives a list of various words that take each suffix. The transcriptions show the pronunciation of the unsuffixed verb. (Transcription is broad, and noncontrastive details not relevant to the alternation are not included.)
| [吨] | [d] | [ ɨ d] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 已达到 | [rit ʃ ] | 割草 | [莫] | 腐烂 | [鼠] |
| 撕破 | [ rɪp ] | 撒谎 | [ fɪb ] | 刺激 | [普拉德] |
| 笑了 | [笑] | 爱 | [l ʌ v] | 解除 | [左ɪ英尺] |
| 扎营 | [骑] | 撞击 | [拉姆] | 提升 | [摔碎] |
| 错过 | [米ɪ秒] | 炽烈 | [哔] | 梳理 | [卡德] |
| 反转 | [riv ɝ s] | 鸣叫 | [布勒] | 手 | [手] |
| 刷新 | [其他] | 有边的 | [ ɛ d ʒ ] | 创建 | [克里特] |
| 挑选 | [韓] | 恳求 | [ bɛg ] | 精心制作 | [kræft] |
| 墨迹 | [ ɪŋ k] | 撞破 | [呂] | 咆哮 | [咆哮] |
| 帮助 | [h ɛ lp] | 罐头 | [kæn] | 带状 | [bɛ lt ] |
| 挤奶 | [mɪ lk ] | 失败的 | [邪能] | 讨厌 | [het] |
| 希望 | [跳] | 被起诉 | 苏 | 断言 | [ ə s ɝ t ] |
作为分析员,我们希望发现这种变化是否受音系环境的影响。因此,下一步(与同位异音分析一样)是列出每个同位异音出现的环境。事实上,进行同位异音分析的步骤如下:音素/变体分析和词素交替分析基本相同。区别在于关注点。在音素/变体分析中,语言学家关注的是整个词汇中的声音分布(当然,在教科书示例或练习中,人们只能关注代表性单词的子集)。在词素交替分析中,语言学家关注的是特定单词或词缀的变体形式。然而,在这两种情况下,总体目标是相同的:发现声音结构的哪些方面是对比的,哪些是可预测的根据环境。
As analysts, we want to discover if the alternation is conditioned by phonological environment. Therefore, the next step (as with an allophone analysis) is to list the environments where each allomorph occurs. In fact, the steps in doing a phoneme/allophone analysis and a morpheme alternation analysis are pretty much the same. The difference is one of focus. In a phoneme/allophone analysis, the linguist is looking at the distribution of sounds across the entire lexicon (though of course in a textbook example or exercise one can only look at a subset of representative words). In a morpheme alternation analysis, the linguist is looking at the variant forms of a specific word or affix. In both cases, however, the overall goal is the same: to discover which aspects of sound structure are contrastive and which are predictable according to the environment.
英语过去时后缀变体的环境如表 1.8所示。由于交替词素是后缀,我们可以假设词干的最后一个音决定了变化。
The environments for the variants of the English past-tense suffix are shown in Table 1.8. Since the alternating morpheme is a suffix, we can begin with the hypothesis that it is the final sound of the stem that conditions the change.
| [吨] | [d] | [ ɨ d] |
|---|---|---|
| ʃ __ | 哦 __ | t __ |
| __ | __ | d __ |
| __ | 五 __ | |
| s __ | 米 __ | |
| ʃ __ | __ | |
| 頁面 | r __ | |
| __ | d ʒ __ | |
| 克 __ | ||
| ŋ __ | ||
| 否 | ||
| 升 __ | ||
| 你 __ |
我们立即注意到,同位素变体呈互补分布:没有一个声音出现在多个列表中。我们还可以注意到,每个列表都形成一个可以用语音术语定义的类:[ ɨ d] 出现在齿龈塞音之后,[t] 出现在所有其他清音之后,[d] 出现在所有其他浊音之后聲音。
We can immediately note that the allomorphs are in complementary distribution: no sound occurs in more than one list. We can also note that each list forms a class that can be defined in phonetic terms: [ɨd] occurs following alveolar stops, [t] occurs following all other voiceless sounds, and [d] occurs following all other voiced sounds.
此外,我们可以看到音位约束在激发交替方面的作用。插入 [ ɨ ] 是为了拆分一串辅音([td] 或 [dd]),否则这些辅音在词尾是无法发音的。清辅音后从 [d] 变为 [t] 使序列符合要求阻塞音群在浊音上一致的约束。如上所述,音位约束排除了标记结构:“固定”的音群要么难以听清(例如 [hændd] 中的第二个 [d]),要么难以发出(例如在 [lpd] 等辅音群中间两次切换浊音)。
Further, we can see the activity of phonotactic constraints in motivating the alternation. The [ɨ] is inserted to break up a cluster of consonants ([td] or [dd]) that would otherwise be unpronounceable at the end of a word. The change from [d] to [t] after voiceless consonants brings the sequence into line with the constraint that requires obstruent clusters to agree in voicing. As was noted above, the phonotactic constraints rule out marked structures: the clusters that are “fixed up” are either hard to hear (like a second [d] in [hændd], or hard to produce (like switching voicing twice in the middle of a consonant cluster like [lpd]).
为了完成分析,我们需要确定词素的基本形式,并陈述得出每种变体形式的概括。在这里,我们可以放心地选择 [d] 作为其他地方的情况,因为采用 [d] 的声音集合是最多样化的:元音、响音和浊音。(这个集合实际上构成了自然类浊音,但这或多或少是偶然的:后缀必须跟在某个东西后面,如果一个声音不是无声的,它就必须是有声的。)我们可以通过首先应用最具体情况的规则来解决确保 [t] 和 [d] 获得其自己的特殊形式的问题。(这种首先考虑最具体情况,从而将其排除在外,以便可以更普遍地做出后续陈述的想法最初是由古印度语法学家 P āṇ ini 提出的,现在仍被称为 P āṇ ini 定理。)
To finish the analysis, we need to decide on the basic form of the morpheme, and state the generalizations that derive each of the variant forms. Here, we can be secure in choosing [d] as the elsewhere case, as the set of sounds that take [d] is the most diverse: vowels, sonorants, and voiced obstruents. (This set does in fact form the natural class of voiced sounds, but that is more or less accidental: a suffix has to follow something, and if a sound isn’t voiceless it has to be voiced.) We can take care of the problem of making sure that [t] and [d] get their own special form by applying the rule for the most specific case first. (This idea of taking the most specific case first, thus getting it out of the way so that succeeding statements could be made more generally, is originally due to the ancient Indian grammarian Pāṇini, and is still known as Pāṇini’s Theorem.)
构成英语过去时态的总体概括可以表述为:
The overall generalization for forming the English past tense can be stated as:
前面几节讨论了人类语言中常见的一些对比和交替。但音系学家想知道的远不止这些。他们想要一个概括,而不仅仅是一个列表。音系学家不想知道“波兰语的声音清单是什么?”而是“任何语言中可能的声音清单是什么?”他们想知道 不仅仅是“不同语言中有哪些常见的变化?”而是“任何语言中都可能有哪些变化?”他们想知道的不仅仅是“俄语和乌克兰语有什么不同?”而是“语言可以有多大的不同?”
The preceding sections have discussed some contrasts and alternations that are common in human languages. But phonologists want to know more than this. They want a generalization, not just a list. Phonologists don’t want to know just “What is the inventory of sounds in Polish?” but “What is a possible inventory in any language?” They want to know not just “What alternations are common across languages?” but “What alternations are possible in any language?” They want to know not just “How are Russian and Ukrainian different?” but “How different can languages be?”
我们已经看到,语言选择不同的语音维度(不同的声道手势)来编码它们的对比。发声、送气、方式和发音位置都可以用于对比。同样,我们已经看到这些相同的维度被用来定义与音系交替相关的声音集。 独特特征理论的目的是对语言中所有可用的语音维度进行编码,以编码对比和自然类别。
We have seen that languages choose different phonetic dimensions (different vocal tract gestures) to encode their contrasts. Voicing, aspiration, manner, and place of articulation can all be used contrastively. Similarly, we have seen these same dimensions used to define sets of sounds that are relevant for phonological alternations. Distinctive feature theory aims to encode all the phonetic dimensions that languages have available to encode contrasts and natural classes.
语言学家罗曼·雅各布森 (Roman Jakobson, 1896–1982) 提出,每个相关维度都可以看作是正反对比。说话者选择声音是 [+voice](有声带振动)还是 [–voice](无声带振动);[+nasal](开放软腭)还是 [–nasal](闭合软腭);[+sonorant](没有气流阻塞的响声)还是 [–sonorant](有气流阻塞的阻塞声);[–continuant](塞音)还是 [+continuant](不是塞音)等等。雅各布森为他的每个特征提出了声学和发音定义。
The linguist Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) proposed that each relevant dimension could be thought of as a plus or minus contrast. The speaker chooses whether a sound will be [+voice] (with vocal fold vibration) or [–voice] (without vocal fold vibration); [+nasal] (open velum) or [–nasal] (closed velum); [+sonorant] (a sonorant sound, without airstream obstruction) or [–sonorant] (an obstruent sound, with airstream obstruction); [–continuant] (a stop) or [+continuant] (not a stop), etc. Jakobson proposed both an acoustic and an articulatory definition for each of his features.
每个音素都可以根据一组独特的特征来定义:例如,[m] 将是 [+唇音,+鼻音]。特征也可用于定义自然类别以及影响它们的变化。西班牙语中的浊塞音将是 [–sonorant, –continuant, +voice],而塞音到摩擦音的转变将是 [–continuant] 变成 [+continuant]。
Every phoneme could be defined in terms of a set of distinctive features: [m], for example, would be [+labial, +nasal]. Features could also be used to define natural classes, and the changes that affect them. The class of voiced stops in Spanish would be [–sonorant, –continuant, +voice], and the change from stop to fricative would be [–continuant] becomes [+continuant].
通过提出一组固定的、有限的通用特征,雅各布森试图定义所有可能与音系相关的语音维度——即可用于对比和交替的语音维度。一种可能的人类语言将使用这些特征,而且只使用这些特征。雅各布森提出的许多特征至今仍在使用;其他特征已被替换或改进。
By proposing a fixed, finite set of universal features, Jakobson attempted to define all the phonetic dimensions that could be phonologically relevant – that is, that could be used for contrasts and alternations. A possible human language would use these, and only these, features. Many of the features Jakobson proposed are still in use today; others have been replaced or refined.
音系学家还关注描述音素(底层表征,或 UR——大脑中单词的存储方式)与音位变体(表面表现形式或 SR——单词的实际发音方式)。诺姆·乔姆斯基和莫里斯·哈勒在1968 年出版的颇具影响力的著作《英语的发音模式》中提出,音位变体是通过应用以下方式从音素派生出来的:音系规则。这些规则的形式为
Phonologists are also concerned with describing the relationship between phonemes (the underlying representation, or UR – the way words are stored in the brain) and allophones (the surface representation, or SR – the way words are actually pronounced). Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle in their influential 1968 book, The Sound Pattern of English, proposed that allophones are derived from phonemes by the application of phonological rules. These rules took the form
X → Y/A __ B
X → Y/A __ B
其中 X 是受影响的声音类别,Y 是变化,A__B 是上下文,全部以区别性特征的形式书写。上述规则可以读作“在 A 和 B 之间的上下文中,X 变为 Y”或“AXB 变为 AYB”。其他特殊字符用于表示单词和词素边界:#___ 表示“词首位置”,___# 表示“词末位置”。您能读懂以下两个描述上述变化的音系规则吗?
where X is the class of sounds affected, Y is the change, and A__B is the context, all written in terms of distinctive features. The rule above can be read “X becomes Y in the context of between A and B” or “AXB becomes AYB.” Other special characters were used for word and morpheme boundaries: #___ means “word-initial position,” and___# means “word-final position.” Can you read the following two phonological rules, which describe alternations discussed above?
| 规则 1: | [–持续,–语态] → [+送气]/#___ |
| 规则2: | [-连续音、-响音、+声音] → [+连续音]/[+连续音]___ |
第一个规则规定,清塞音出现在词首时会变成送气音。这描述了英语中 [p]、[t] 和 [k] 的词首送气。第二条规则规定,浊塞音跟在另一个不间断音之后时会变成持续音(即擦音)。这描述了西班牙语中浊塞音 [b、d、g]前面有 [ ] 时会变成浊擦音 [ β , ð, ɣ ]。元音。
The first rule states that a voiceless stop becomes aspirated when it is produced at the beginning of a word. This describes word-initial aspiration of [p], [t], and [k] in English. The second rule states that a voiced stop becomes continuant (that is, a fricative) when it follows another nonstop sound. This describes how a voiced stop in Spanish [b, d, g] changes to voiced fricatives [β, ð, ɣ] whenever it is preceded by a vowel.
在一个派生规则将 UR 改为 SR。回想一下上面关于单词grandm发音的讨论。基本、底层的表示形式在中间有三个辅音 [ndm] 序列。首先,通过删除 [d] 简化此序列。然后,[n] 代替发音与接下来的 [m] 同化,现在它与 [m] 相邻。结果是中间辅音实际上发音为 [mm]。派生显示了这一系列变化。因此,[græmmʌðər] 的派生如下所示:
In a derivation, rules change the UR into the SR. Recall the discussion, above, of the pronunciation of the word grandmother. The basic, underlying, representation has a sequence of three consonants [ndm] in the middle. First, this sequence is simplified, by deletion of the [d]. Then, the [n] assimilates in place of articulation to the following [m], to which it is now adjacent. The result is that the medial consonants are in fact pronounced [mm]. A derivation shows this series of changes. Thus, the derivation of [græmmʌðər] looks like this:
| 底层表示: | 祖母ʌ ð ə r |
| 规则1、删除: | 绿色ʌ ð ə r |
| 规则2,同化: | 格陵兰ʌ ð ə r |
| 表面表现: | 格陵兰ʌ ð ə r |
音系学家提出了不同的规则编写方法。例如,将同化视为特征共享而不是特征改变可能更有意义。人们可以通过绘制一个辅音与另一个辅音共享的单个特征来编写浊音同化规则:
Phonologists have proposed different ways of writing rules. For example, it might make more sense to think of assimilation as feature sharing rather than feature changing. One might write a rule of voicing assimilation by diagramming a single feature being shared from one consonant to another:
这种编写规则的方式称为自动分段表示,因为这些特征被视为独立于段串的。
This way of writing rules is called autosegmental representation, because the features are treated as autonomous from the string of segments.
最近,音系学家开始质疑音系规则是否是思考底层表征和表层表征之间关系的最佳方式。规则可以描述交替,但它们没有捕捉到交替往往有原因这一事实——使单词符合音位学约束。音系学的最新研究强调了约束在调解底层表征和表层表征方面的重要性。这些研究提出,所有语言都共享同一组约束,但对它们的排序不同。给定形式可能会违反排序较低的约束以满足更重要的约束。例如,将 /grændm ʌ ð ə r/ 发音为 [græmm ʌ ð ə r] 表明,英语更重视“不能有三个连续的辅音”这一约束,而不是“UR 中的每个音段都必须出现在第一个音节中”这一约束。“SR。”
More recently, phonologists have questioned whether phonological rules are the best way to think of the relationship between underlying and surface representations. Rules can describe alternations, but they don’t capture the fact that alternations tend to take place for a reason – to bring words into conformity with phonotactic constraints. Recent work in phonology has emphasized the importance of constraints in mediating between underlying and surface representations. Such work proposes that all languages share the same set of constraints, but rank them differently. A given form may violate a lower-ranked constraint in order to meet a more important one. For instance, the pronunciation of /grændmʌðər/ as [græmmʌðər] indicates that English places a higher priority on the constraint that says “Don’t have three consonants in a row” than on the constraint that says “every segment in the UR must appear in the SR.”
本章的目的是从语音学家和音系学家的角度描述语音。语音学家研究语言声音的物理方面:声道结构的运动、发音的位置和方式发音、声波在空气中的传播、听觉和言语感知、基频和共振峰结构的计算机测量。音系学家研究声音模式的更抽象的组织:音节结构、音位约束、交替、底层和表面表示之间的关系。
The goal of this chapter has been to describe the sounds of speech, from the point of view of a phonetician and of a phonologist. Phoneticians study the physical aspects of linguistic sounds: Movements of the structures of the vocal tract, place and manner of articulation, the propagation of sound waves through the air, hearing and speech perception, computer measurement of fundamental frequency and formant structure. Phonologists study the more abstract organization of sound patterns: syllable structure, phonotactic constraints, alternations, the relationship between underlying and surface representations.
我们在本章的开头提出了音系学家和语音学家提出的问题,并尝试调查一些已提出的初步答案。音系学家和语音学家已经了解了很多关于语音是如何产生的、如何被感知以及如何组织的。但仍有许多问题尚待解决。
We began this chapter by posing questions that phonologists and phoneticians ask, and have attempted to survey some of the preliminary answers that have been proposed. Phonologists and phoneticians have learned a lot about how speech sounds are made, how they are perceived, and how they are organized. But many questions remain.
回答这些问题的研究仍有待完成。
The studies that will answer these questions remain to be written.
以图 1.2为模型 ,绘制声道中矢图。在图中:
Draw a mid-sagittal diagram of the vocal tract, using Figure 1.2 as a model. In your diagram:
然后,标记每个主动和被动咬合器:
Then, label each of the active and passive articulators:
填空描述这些英语辅音:
Fill in the blanks to describe these consonants of English:
发声 鼻音 发音部位 发音方式 頻音/阻塞音 米 浊音 鼻腔 双唇 停止 響鳴 s 无声 口服 肺泡 擦音 阻碍 克 ʃ n d f ð
Voicing Nasality Place of articulation Manner of articulation Sonorant/obstruent m voiced nasal bilabial stop sonorant s voiceless oral alveolar fricative obstruent g ʃ n d f ð
填空描述元音符号:
Fill in the blanks to describe the vowel symbols:
高度 正面/背面 四舍五入 紧张/松弛 ɪ 高的 正面 不圆 松懈 我 ɛ o æ o ʊ
Height Front/back Rounding Tense/lax ɪ high front unround lax i ɛ o æ o ʊ
用 IPA 转录以下单词:
Transcribe the following words in IPA:
用英语正字法写出以下段落(摘自 Sapir 1933)。请注意,符号 [ ɾ ] 代表齿龈“tap”,这是美式英语t和d的音位变体,出现在pretty [ ˈ pr ɪɾɪ ] 和后来的[ ˈ le ɾə r] 中。符号 [ ˈ ] 位于重读音节之前。
Write out the following passage (from Sapir 1933) in English orthography. Note that the symbol [ɾ] stands for an alveolar “tap,” an allophone of American English t and d found in pretty [ˈprɪɾɪ] and later [ˈleɾər]. The symbol [ˈ] precedes the stressed syllable.
ð ə ˈ kans ɛ pt ə v ð ə ˈ fonim, ə ˈ f ʌ nk ʃə n ə li s ɪ g ˈ n ɪ f ɪ k ə nt ˈ jun ɪ t ɪ n ð ə ˈ r ɪ d ʒɪ dli d əˈ fa ɪ nd ˈ pa ɾə rn ɔ r k ʌ nf ɪɡ j əˈ re ʃə n ə v sa ʊ ndz p əˈ kjul ə r tu ə ˈ læ ŋɡ w ɪ d ʒ , æz d ɪ st ɪ nkt fr ə m ðæt ə v ð ə sa ʊ nd ɔ r f əˈ n ɛɾɪ k ˈɛ l ə m ɛ nt æz s ʌ t ʃ , æn ə b ˈ d ʒɛ kt ɪ vli d əˈ fa ɪ n ə b ə l ˈɛ nt ɪɾ i ɪ n ði ar ˈ t ɪ kjule ɾɨ d ænd p ɛ r ˈ sivd to ˈ tæl ɪɾ i ə v spit ʃ , ɪ z bi ˈ k ʌ m ɪŋ m ɔ r ænd m ɔ r f əˈ m ɪ lj ə r tu ˈ l ɪŋɡ wists。 ð ə ˈ d ɪ f ɪ k ə lti ðæt ˈ m ɛ ni st ɪ l sim t ə fil ɪ n d ɪ s ˈ t ɪŋɡɪʃɪŋ b əˈ twin ð ə tu m ʌst əˈ v ɛ nt ʃ u ə li d ɪ s əˈ pir æz ð ə ril əˈ ze ʃə n ɡ roz ðæt no ˈɛ nt ɪɾ i ɪ n ˈ hjum ə n ɛ k ˈ spiri ə ns kæn bi ˈ æ ɾə kw ɪ tli d əˈ fa ɪ ndæz ðe m əˈ kæn ɪ k ə l s ʌṃ ɔ r ˈ prad ə kt ə v ɪ ts ˈ f ɪ s ɪ k ə l ˈ prap ə rtiz.
ðə ˈkansɛpt əv ðə ˈfonim, ə ˈfʌnkʃənəli sɪgˈnɪfɪkənt ˈjunɪt ɪn ðə ˈrɪdʒɪdli dəˈfaɪnd ˈpaɾərn ɔr kʌnfɪɡjəˈreʃən əv saʊndz pəˈkjulər tu ə ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ, æz dɪˈstɪnkt frəm ðæt əv ðə saʊnd ɔr fəˈnɛɾɪk ˈɛləmɛnt æz sʌtʃ, æn əbˈdʒɛktɪvli dəˈfaɪnəbəl ˈɛntɪɾi ɪn ði arˈtɪkjuleɾɨd ænd pɛrˈsivd toˈtælɪɾi əv spitʃ, ɪz biˈkʌmɪŋ mɔr ænd mɔr fəˈmɪljər tu ˈlɪŋɡwists. ðə ˈdɪfɪkəlti ðæt ˈmɛni stɪl sim tə fil ɪn dɪsˈtɪŋɡɪʃɪŋ bəˈtwin ðə tu mʌst əˈvɛntʃuəli dɪsəˈpir æz ðə riləˈzeʃən ɡroz ðæt no ˈɛntɪɾi ɪn ˈhjumən ɛkˈspiriəns kæn bi ˈæɾəkwɪtli dəˈfaɪndæz ðe məˈkænɪkəl sʌṃ ɔr ˈpradəkt əv ɪts ˈfɪsɪkəl ˈprapərtiz.
转录下列单词,并为每个单词绘制音节树。解释响度在将辅音序列分配给首音或尾音时如何相关。
Transcribe the following words, and draw a syllable tree for each. Explain how sonority is relevant in assigning sequences of consonants to the onset or coda.
列出包含序列 [ju] 的美式英语单词,例如beautiful和music。禁止在 [ju] 前面使用哪类自然辅音?
Make a list of American English words that contain the sequence [ju], such as beautiful and music.What natural class of consonants is prohibited from preceding [ju]?
考虑一下日语中浊元音和清元音的分布(数据来自 Tsuchida 1996)。[i] 和 [i j ] 代表两个不同的音素,还是它们是一个音素的变体?那么 [u] 和 [u j ] 呢?请给出你的答案,要么引用数据中的(接近)最小对,要么描述两个声音的分布。
Consider the distribution of voiced and voiceless vowels in Japanese (data from Tsuchida 1996). Are [i] and [ij] representatives of two distinct phonemes, or are they allophones of a single phoneme? What about [u] and [uj]? Argue for your answer, either by citing (near-)minimal pairs from the data, or by describing the distributions of two sounds.
所有浊元音:
All voiced vowels:
| 心 | '心' |
| 老师 | '老师' |
| 格科 | '插入语' |
| 斯贝鲁 | '滑' |
| 布卡 | '下属' |
| 小孩 | '轨道' |
| 奥莫ʃ伊罗伊 | '有趣的' |
| 巴尼拉 | '香草' |
| 朱梅 | '梦' |
一些清元音:
Some voiceless vowels:
考虑一下俄语中 [l] 和 [l j ]([l] 的腭化版本,具有抬高和前伸的舌体位置)的分布。它们代表两个不同的音素,还是它们是一个音素的变体?请通过引用数据中的(接近)最小对或描述两个声音的分布(数据由 Maria Gouskova 提供)来论证您的答案。
Consider the distribution of [l] and [lj] (a palatalized version of [l], with a raised and fronted tongue body position) in Russian. Do they represent two different phonemes, or are they allophones of a single phoneme? Argue for your answer, either by citing (near-)minimal pairs from the data, or by describing the distributions of two sounds (data courtesy of Maria Gouskova).
含有 [l] 的单词:
Words with [l]:
| 纬度 | '协议' |
| 节日 | '节日' |
| 波尔卡舞 | '架子' |
| 梅尔 | '粉笔' |
| 波尔 | '热' |
含有 [l j ] 的单词:
Words with [lj]:
| 米尔杰 | “英里” |
| 尼博尔 | ‘虚构的故事’ |
| 拉 | '恶魔' |
| 哦 | '冰' |
| 摩尔 | '蛾' |
| 波尔卡 | ‘波尔卡’ |
考虑佛罗伦萨意大利语中 [k](清软腭塞音)和 [x](清软腭擦音)的分布(数据来自 Villafana 2006)。它们代表两个不同的音素,还是同一音素的变体?请通过引用数据中的(接近)最小对或描述两种声音的分布来论证您的答案。
Consider the distribution of [k] (voiceless velar stop) and [x] (voiceless velar fricative) in Florentine Italian (data from Villafana 2006). Do they represent two different phonemes, or allophones of the same phoneme? Argue for your answer, either by citing (near-)minimal pairs from the data, or by describing the distributions of two sounds.
| 拉克萨萨 | “房子” |
| 痘病毒 | '小的' |
| 红木属 | '堆' |
| 阿米克索 | ‘朋友’ |
| 菲西 | '无花果' |
| 库沃索 | '厨师' |
| 宽多 | '什么时候' |
| 卡佩拉 | '教堂' |
| 布拉尔·杰·科 | '白色的' |
| 马基纳 | '机器' |
| 卡比纳 | '展位' |
考虑以下英语中出现的变更。将每种变更描述为同化、异化、弱化、强化、插入或删除。对于每种变更,列出另外三个经历变更的单词。
Consider the following alternations that occur in English. Describe each as assimilation, dissimilation, lenition, fortition, epenthesis, or deletion. For each, list three more words that undergo the alternation.
本章介绍了形态学,即研究词语的内部结构及其有意义的部分。形态学过程有两个基本目的:(1)在语言中创造新词和(2)修改现有词语。我们可能会将一个词与某个基本思想、形象或事件联系起来,但修改一个词的确切形式也可以提供重要信息,例如谁参与了某个事件,事件发生的时间或方式,或者说话者对事件的态度。单词越复杂,它就越有可能传达此类信息。通过操纵单词的各个部分,我们可以淡化、强化甚至否定其基本含义,或者改变其在句子中的语法作用。当然,不同的语言有不同的做法。
This chapter introduces the subject of morphology, the study of the internal structure of words and their meaningful parts. Morphological processes accomplish two basic purposes: (1) to create new words in a language and (2) to modify existing words. We may associate a word with a certain basic idea, image or event, but modifying the exact form of a word can also contribute important information, such as who is participating in an event, when or how it occurred, or something about the speaker’s attitude toward it. The more complex the word, the more information of this sort it is likely to convey. By manipulating various parts of a word, we can shade, intensify, or even negate its basic meaning, or change its grammatical role within a sentence. Different languages, of course, have different ways of doing this.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
想象一下,你处在一个环境中,你周围的每个人都在说一种你从未听过的语言,而你却听不懂他们说的任何一个字。典型的短语——“听不懂一个词”——强调了我们的直觉,即单词是语言的基本组成部分。任何语言学习者(包括学习母语的幼儿)的首要任务是弄清楚如何将他们周围的谈话噪音分割和分析成有意义的单元——即单词及其有意义的部分。
Imagine you were in an environment where everyone around you was speaking a language you’d never heard before, and you couldn’t understand a single word of what they were saying. That typical phrase – “couldn’t understand a single word” – underscores our intuition that words are the fundamental building blocks of language. The foremost task of any language learner, including young children acquiring their native language, is to figure out how to segment and analyze the wall of talking-noise around them into meaningful units – namely, words and their meaningful parts.
但单词到底是什么?韦氏大词典(1989 年)将单词定义为语言中最小的独立单位,即话语中可以与其他此类单位分开的单位。在下面的对话交流中,(1b)展示了单词tea的独立性。
But what is a word, exactly? Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (1989) defines a word as the smallest independent unit of language, or one that can be separated from other such units in an utterance. In the following conversational exchange, (1b) demonstrates the independence of the word tea.
| (1) |
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单词可以进入语法结构,例如短语和句子。例如,单词tea可以根据其语法角色在句子中使用在不同的位置:
Words can enter into grammatical constructions, such as phrases and sentences. For example, the word tea can be used in different positions in a sentence according to its grammatical role:
| (2) |
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在(2a)中,茶是句子的主语,在(2b)中是直接宾语,在(2c)中是介词的宾语。
Tea is the subject of the sentence in (2a), the direct object in (2b), and the object of a preposition in (2c).
韦氏词典的定义继续写道:单词“在书写中通常用空格隔开,并在语音上加以区分,比如用重音”(第 1643 页)。但这只是部分准确。虽然在许多语言(如英语)的书面形式中,单词之间都有空格,但正字法(一种语言的书面形式)并不是单词的重要组成部分。有些语言,如中文在书写时不会在单词之间插入空格,但这些语言的使用者仍然知道他们的语言中的单词是什么。同样,不会阅读的人和没有书写系统的语言的使用者也知道他们的语言中的单词是什么。
Our definition from Webster’s continues: words are “usually separated by spaces in writing and distinguished phonologically, as by accent” (p. 1643). But this is only partially accurate. Although spaces are placed between words in the written form of many languages (like English), orthography (the written form of a language) cannot be a crucial component of wordhood. There are languages like Chinese which don’t insert spaces between words in writing, but speakers of these languages still know what a word is in their language. Similarly, people who can’t read and speakers of languages without writing systems know what words are in their languages, too.
另一方面,音系学在跨语言识别词语界限方面确实发挥着重要作用。例如,考虑字符串 /grinhaus/。(回想一下第 1 章中的内容,斜杠之间的符号表示使用语言的音素发音的方式。)音系重音消除了(3a)和(3b)中话语含义的歧义,表明 /grinhaus/ 在(3a)中是一个单词(复合词),但在(3b)中是两个不同的词:
On the other hand, phonology does play an important role across languages in identifying the boundaries between words. For example, consider the string /grinhaus/. (Recall from Chapter 1 that symbols between forward slashes represent how something is pronounced, using the phonemes of a language.) Phonological stress disambiguates the meaning of the utterances in (3a) and (3b), indicating that /grinhaus/ is a single (compound) word in (3a) but two distinct words in (3b):
| (3) |
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音系学可以帮助我们识别单词,但我们还需要其他信息。请考虑以下几点:
Phonology can help us identify words, but we need other information as well. Consider the following:
| (4) |
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(4a)中的tea’s是一个词还是两个词? tea’s的发音形式与(4b)中的teas甚至(4c)中的tease发音相同;都发音为 /tiz/。但您的直觉可能是tea’s的词性状态在语法上与teas或tease有所不同。tea ’s中还有一个额外的元素,虽然它在音系上依赖于tea(因为该词的缩写形式是),但它仍然是一个独特的语法词。
Is tea’s in (4a) one word or two? The sound form of tea’s is phonetically identical to that of teas in (4b) and even tease in (4c); all are pronounced /tiz/. But your intuition is probably that the wordhood status of tea’s is somehow grammatically different from that of teas or tease. There is an additional element in tea’s which, although phonologically dependent on tea (as a contracted form of the word is), is nonetheless a distinct grammatical word.
韦氏词典还指出,单词“通常被认为代表着不可分割的概念、动作或感觉,或具有单一的指称”。显然,(4c)中的单词tease与(4b)中的teas具有不同的指称。但单词teas 的含义也与简单的单词tea稍有不同- 类似于“不止一种茶”。这种含义上的差异通过单词tea的-s结尾(发音为 [z])传达。但这个 -s结尾不是一个独立的词;相反,它必须直接附加到一个它正在修饰其基本含义的独立词上 - 在本例中,表示复数含义。我们可以得出结论,尽管teas只是一个词,但 -s结尾是一个独特的部分,为该词的整体含义贡献了一些额外的信息。
Webster’s also states that words are “typically thought of as representing an indivisible concept, action, or feeling, or as having a single referent.” Clearly, the word tease in (4c) has a different referent than teas in (4b). But the word teas also means something a bit different than the simple word tea – something like ‘more than one kind of tea.’ This difference in meaning is conveyed by the ending -s (pronounced [z]) on the word tea. But this -s ending is not an independent word; rather, it must be attached directly to an independent word whose basic meaning it is modifying – in this case, to indicate plural meaning. We can conclude that even though teas is just one word, the -s ending is a distinct subpart that contributes some piece of additional information to the word’s overall meaning.
看来我们需要对单词进行一个相当复杂的定义,从意义、语法和音系学的角度对其进行定义。现在,让我们更简单地将单词(语言学中一个出奇困难的术语)定义为抽象符号,它是语言中最小的语法独立单位。
It appears that we require a fairly complex definition of word, defining it in relation to meaning, grammar, and phonology. For now, let us more simply define a word (a surprisingly difficult term in linguistics) as an abstract sign that is the smallest grammatically independent unit of language.
所有语言都有词语,但语言用来表达特定含义的特定符号是任意的。例如,单词water的发音形式中并没有什么固有的东西真正带有“水”的含义。法语使用者称其为eau,日语使用者称其为mizu,意大利人称其为 acqua。用手语拼写的“水”形式被标记在海伦·凯勒伸出手掌,水从另一只手上流过,使她能够“闯入”作为抽象符号的词语体系。后来,她还了解到“水”的含义是如何用另一种抽象形式来表达的——被称为盲文的凸点系统:
All languages have words, but the particular sign a language uses to express a particular meaning is arbitrary. For example, there’s nothing inherent in the sound form of the word water that actually carries the meaning of ‘water.’ French speakers refer to the very same stuff as eau, Japanese speakers call it mizu, and Italians acqua. The fingerspelled form of ‘water’ that was signed onto Helen Keller’s outstretched palm as water flowed over the other enabled her to “break into” the system of words as abstract signs. Later, she would also learn how the meaning of ‘water’ was represented in another kind of abstract form – the system of raised dots known as Braille:
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人类发现和创造文字的冲动似乎超越了身体能力的巨大差异。
The human impulse to discover and create words, it seems, transcends even profound differences in physical capabilities.
一个人的语言中的单词构成了其词汇表。人们可以将词汇表视为一种存储单词的心理词典。我们对每个单词的了解,就像词典中的词汇条目一样,包含多种信息。例如,考虑一下您对单词sleep 的了解:
The words of one’s language make up its lexicon. One might think of the lexicon as a kind of mental dictionary where words are stored. Our knowledge of each word, like the lexical entries in a dictionary, includes several kinds of information. Consider what you know, for example, about the word sleep:
当你停下来思考一下你的词汇表里有成千上万个单词,以及你已经知道的关于每个单词的一切时,你就会开始意识到这一令人印象深刻的成就有多么伟大。此外,新词不断被添加,就像词典不断修订和更新一样(例如beer goggles、DVD-player)。列出的单词的含义也可能随着时间的推移而改变,或者获得(或失去)不同的含义(例如dude、gay)。
When you stop to consider for a moment all the (tens of thousands of) words that are in your lexicon and everything you already know about each of them, you can begin to appreciate the magnitude of the accomplishment of this impressive feat. Moreover, new items are continually being added, just as dictionaries are continually revised and updated (e.g. beer goggles, DVD-player). The meanings of the listed words might also change over time, or acquire (or lose) different shades of meaning (e.g. dude, gay).
然而,当代的构词研究并不只是研究现有的、列出的词典单词,而是研究一个人的语言中可能出现的单词以及构造和理解这些单词的心理规则。并不是所有你能产生和解释的单词都列在词典里,因为可能的单词数量是无限的。例如,最近快速浏览一本杂志时,发现了以下单词:
However, the contemporary study of word formation is not as much about the study of existing, listed dictionary words as it is the study of possible words in one’s language and the mental rules for constructing and understanding them. Not all of the words you can produce and interpret are listed in the lexicon, because the number of possible words is infinite. For example, a recent quick look through a single magazine turned up the following words:
| (6) |
超越 outgeneraled 贪婪 scrounginess 信息主义 on-messagism 无法回答 unanswerability 境外化 extraterritorialization 过度养育 hyperparenting 超人类主义者 transhumanists 有阳台 balconied |
在同一期中,还有许多自由创造的复合词表达,包括以下内容:
In that same issue there were also many freely coined compound-word expressions, including the following:
| (7) |
击打时间间隔 thwack-time interval 禽畜粪便堆肥 poultry-litter composting 收据管理策略 receipt-management strategy 令人尴尬的 cringe-making 蓬松的头发 floppy-haired 文化研究符号学爱好者 cultural studies semiotics junkies 雪头 snowy-headed 困惑的黑猩猩表情 puzzled-chimp expression |
它是有可能这些新创造的单词中的一个会“留存在”你的词汇中——也许随着越来越多的人采用它,或者只是因为你喜欢它,它又会出现在其他地方。然而,大多数这些单词注定会立即被遗忘。但即使它们是短暂的,它们也展示了人类在心理上表征语言中单词复杂结构的能力。
It’s possible that one of these newly created words will “stick” in your lexicon – perhaps popping up again someplace else as more people adopt it or maybe because you just like it. Most of these words, however, are destined to be immediately forgotten. But even though they are ephemeral, they demonstrate the human capacity to mentally represent the complex structure of words in one’s language.
为了进一步说明你对单词的了解,让我们考虑一个你可能不知道的单词(因为它是我编的):frimp。如果你在英语句子的语境中听到这个单词,例如John likes to frimp on weekends,那么你就会推断出它是一个可以不及物动词(即没有直接宾语)使用的动词。一旦你知道了这一点,那么甚至在学习它的确切含义(这取决于上下文和你对它是一个“动作”的了解)之前,你就已经知道如何基于这个动词构造其他几种词形。你会知道如何使用它的过去形式(he frimped all day gone dad)和进行时形式(he was in the kitchen frimping when I called)。你还会知道如何将它变成形容词(I wish he'd mend his frimping ways)。你会知道查找(或列出)frimp,而不是frimped或frimping,作为“字典”形式,因为你会假设frimp是常规动词。由于 -ed和-ing结尾可以附加到所有frimped和frimping形式实际上不需要列在frimp。您还会知道 John 是一个frimper。如您所见,您已经对这个假设词了解很多!
To further illustrate what you know about words, let’s consider a word you’re not likely to know (because I’ve made it up): frimp. If you heard it in the context of an English sentence such as John likes to frimp on weekends, then you would deduce that it’s a verb that can be used intransitively (that is, without a direct object). And once you knew that, then even before learning its exact meaning (which would depend on the context and your knowledge that it’s an “action”), you would already know how to construct several other word forms based on this verb. You’d know how to use its past form (he frimped all day yesterday) and progressive form (he was in the kitchen frimping when I called). You’d also know how to turn it into an adjective (I wish he’d mend his frimping ways). You would know to look up (or list) frimp, not frimped or frimping, as the “dictionary” form, because you’d assume that frimp is a regular verb. Since the -ed and -ing endings can attach to all regular verbs, the forms frimped and frimping don’t really need to be listed in the lexical entry for frimp. You’d also know that John was a frimper. As you can see, you already know quite a lot about this hypothetical word!
每种语言都有自己的创造新词的规则和过程,即使这些词从未被收录在字典中,它们也可以在其上下文中得到解释。词的形式可能很简单,也可能非常复杂;我们对使我们能够产生和解释这些词的心理规则和类别的了解构成了形态学的主题。
Each language has its own rules and processes for creating new words, and these words are interpretable in their contexts even if they are never recorded in a dictionary. The forms of words may be simple or extremely complex; our knowledge of the mental rules and categories that enable us to produce and interpret them makes up the subject of morphology.
语言学的一个分支学科是形态学,它研究词语内部和词语之间的意义与形式之间的关系。形态学的字面意思是“研究形式”——特别是词语的形式。虽然在这种情况下,“形式”通常是指与特定含义相关的语音或音系形式,但并不一定如此——手语也有词形。手语利用手的形状和动作,而不是声道的发声器官。所有语言,无论是口语还是手语,都有词形。
The branch of linguistics that is concerned with the relation between meaning and form, within words and between words, is known as morphology. Morphology literally means ‘the study of form’ – in particular, the forms of words. Although “form” in this context usually refers to the spoken sound or phonological form that is associated with a particular meaning, it doesn’t necessarily have to – signed languages also have word forms. Instead of the articulators of the vocal tract, signed languages make use of the shape and movement of the hands. All languages, whether spoken or signed, have word forms.
形态学家描述单词的组成部分、它们的含义以及它们在世界语言中可以(和不可以)组合的方式。意义与形式的配对适用于整个单词,如sleep,也适用于单词的部分,如与词尾ed相关的“过去”含义,如frimped。
Morphologists describe the constituent parts of words, what they mean, and how they may (and may not) be combined in the world’s languages. The pairing of a meaning with a form applies to whole words, like sleep, as well as to parts of words like the ‘past’ meaning associated with the ending -ed as in frimped.
形态学适用于单词内部,例如在cat /kæt/后面添加复数词尾,将其形式改为cats /kæts/,含义改为“多于一只猫”。形态学也适用于单词之间,例如当我们改变一个单词的形式,使其某些部分与另一个单词的某些特征相匹配或一致时,如(8)所示:
Morphology applies within words, as in the addition of a plural ending to cat /kæt/ to change its form to cats /kæts/ and its meaning to ‘more than one cat.’ It also applies across words, as when we alter the form of one word so that some part of it matches, or agrees with, some feature of another word, as shown in (8):
| (8) |
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在(8a)中的句子中,单词cat是第三人称单数 (3SG) 主语,在大多数英语变体中,当它们在句子中同时出现时,我们需要在另一个单词(动词)后面添加 -s 。这个动词后缀“意味着”类似“我的主语是第三人称单数”。然而,在(8b)中,单词cats是复数,在英语中不需要动词添加任何特殊的一致形式。(在这方面,英语在世界语言中是非常不寻常的!)在上面的例子中,请注意单词that和those也交叉引用了cat和cats之间的单数与复数意义区别。这种形态词与词之间匹配一致性是世界各国语言中广泛遵守的现象。
In the sentence in (8a), the word cat is a third-person singular (3SG) subject, which in most varieties of English requires that we add an -s to another word – the verb – when they occur together in a sentence. This verbal suffix “means” something like ‘my subject is third person and singular.’ In (8b), however, the word cats is plural, which in English doesn’t require the verb to add any special agreeing form. (English is highly unusual among the world’s languages in this regard!) In the examples above, notice that the words that and those also crossreference the singular vs. plural meaning distinction between cat and cats. This kind of morphological agreement between matching parts of words is widely observed among the world’s languages.
不同语言的形态数量和功能差异很大(通常是历史发展的结果——见第 8 章)。例如,所有语言都需要一种方式来表示语法角色,如主语和直接宾语(或谁对谁做了什么)。英语严格依赖于句子中的词序来做到这一点。(9a)的含义与(9b)的含义非常不同:
Languages vary widely in their amount and functions of morphology (often as a result of historical development – see Chapter 8). For example, all languages need a way to signal grammatical roles such as subject and direct object (or, who did what to whom). English depends quite strictly on the order of words in a sentence to do this. The meaning of (9a) is very different from that of (9b):
| (9) |
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然而,拉丁语以形态学的方式标记语法角色,因此词序更加自由;下面所有拉丁语句子的意思都是“布鲁图斯杀死了凯撒”:
Latin, however, marks grammatical roles morphologically, and word order is consequently much freer; all the Latin sentences below mean ‘Brutus killed Caesar’:
| (10) |
Br ū tus Caesar em occ ī dit。 Brūtus Caesarem occīdit. 凯撒em occ ī dit Br ūtus。 Caesarem occīdit Brūtus. Occ ī dit 凯撒em Br ūtus。 Occīdit Caesarem Brūtus. “布鲁图斯杀死了凯撒。” ‘Brutus killed Caesar.’ |
在拉丁语中,在名词Caesar后面添加 -em表示Caesar 是直接宾语,即被杀的人。(在这种情况下,主语 Br ū tus 没有标记。)在这里,名词的形态形式(而不是其在句子中的位置)表明了其语法功能。形态学最重要的功能之一是区分事件中各个参与者所扮演的角色;如果没有这些信息,我们就无法解释语言。
In Latin, the addition of -em to the noun Caesar indicates that Caesar is the direct object, or the one who got killed. (The subject, Brūtus, in this case is unmarked.) Here the morphological form of a noun, rather than its position in the sentence, signals its grammatical function. One of the most important functions of morphology is to distinguish the roles played by the various participants in an event; we could not interpret language without this information.
在本章的其余部分,我们将研究形态学的其他一些功能,并仔细研究语言学家用来描述形态学过程的一些关键术语和概念。
In the remainder of this chapter, we will examine some other functions of morphology, and also take a closer look at some key terms and concepts that linguists use to describe the processes of morphology.
我们之前说过,tea和teas这两个词的含义略有不同,这种差异是由于teas以-s结尾。但是,既然-s本身不是一个词,它怎么会有自己的含义呢?事实上,语言的最小单位不是词,而是词素,它们结合了形式(发音方式)和含义(含义)。词由词素组成。简单词由一个词素组成。复杂词由多个词素组成。例如, 与cats相比, cat是一个简单的词,后者包含两个词素——名词cat加上复数标记 - s。类似地,在单词unfriendly中,有三个词素:un-、friend和 - ly,每个词素都为整个单词贡献了一些含义。形态丰富的语言中的一些单词可能包含如此多的词素,以至于我们需要用一整句英语复合句来翻译它们。考虑以下土耳其语中的复杂词,它包含词根Avrupa - “欧洲”加上另外 11 个词素(现在不必担心每个词素的功能,因为它在单词下方有注释):
We said earlier that tea and teas are both words with slightly different meanings, and that this difference is due to the -s ending on teas. But since -s is not itself a word, how can it have its own meaning? In fact, it is not words, but rather morphemes, that are the smallest units of language that combine both a form (the way they sound) and a meaning (what they mean). Words are made up of morphemes. Simple words consist of a single morpheme. Complex words consist of more than one morpheme. For example, cat is a simple word compared with cats, which contains two morphemes – the noun cat plus a plural marker -s. Similarly, in the word unfriendly, there are three morphemes: un-, friend, and -ly, each of which contributes some meaning to the overall word. Some words in morphologically rich languages can contain so many morphemes that we need an entire complex sentence in English to translate them. Consider the following complex word from Turkish, which contains the lexical root Avrupa -‘Europe’ plus eleven additional morphemes (don’t worry for now about the function of each morpheme as glossed below the word):
| (11) |
Avrupal ı la ş t ı r ı lamayacaklardans ı n ı z Avrupalılaştırılamayacaklardansınız Avrupa-l ı -la ş -t ı r- ı l - a-ma-yacak-lar-dan-s ı n- ı z Avrupa-lı-laş-tır-ıl-a-ma-yacak-lar-dan-sın-ız 欧洲-A-ize-导致-被动-潜在-NEG-FUT.PART-PL-ABL-2ND-PL Europe-an-ize-CAUSE-PASSIVE-POTENTIAL-NEG-FUT.PART-PL-ABL-2ND-PL “你们(所有人)都是无法变得像欧洲人一样的人。” ‘You (all) are among those who will not be able to be caused to become like Europeans.’ |
然而,即使在英语中,我们也可以想出一个相当复杂的词,可以更紧凑地表达翻译后半部分“not able to be formed to become like Europeans”的大致含义:
However, even in English, we can come up with a reasonably complex word that can more compactly express the approximate meaning of the latter part of the translation ‘not able to be caused to become like Europeans’:
| (12) |
你是那些无法欧洲化的人之一。 You are among those who will be unEuropeanizable. 英语单词unEuropeanizable由词根Europe加上词素un-、-(i)an、-ize和-able组成。每个词素都构成了整个单词的整体含义。 The English word unEuropeanizable consists of the root Europe plus the morphemes un-, -(i)an, -ize, and -able. Each of these morphemes contributes to the overall meaning of the entire word. |
如果一种语言中某个词素具有语法意义,我们会在直译中用小写字母标注该词素,顺序与词素出现的顺序相同。因此,在 (11)中,t ı r表示“使役”,ı l表示“被动”, a表示“潜在”,等等。如果标注中带有点,则表示该词素包含两种含义,因此acak在土耳其语中表示“将来分词”。 例 (11) 中有两个词素标注为 pl,表示“复数”;第一个lar是将来分词的复数,第二个ı z是第二人称的复数。
When a language has a morpheme with a grammatical meaning, we gloss it in small capital letters in the interlinear translation, in the same order in which the morphemes appear. So, in (11), tır means ‘causative,’ ıl means ‘passive,’ a means ‘potential,’ and so on. When a gloss appears with a dot within it, it means the morpheme includes both meanings, hence, acak means ‘future participle’ in Turkish. Example (11) has two morphemes glossed pl, for ‘plural’; the first, lar, is the plural for the future participle, the second, ız, is the plural for second person.
在构建单词(以及短语和句子)时,会使用两种基本类型的词素。具有更丰富的词汇“词汇”意义(指事物、品质和世界上的行为)的词素称为词汇词素或词素。词素通常属于名词(N)、动词(V)或形容词(A)的“主要”词性类别(参见第 3 章中的方框 3.1);简单词素可以作为更复杂单词的词根。另一方面,主要提供语法信息或表明词素之间关系的词素称为语法词素。在下面(13)中的句子中,单词maniacal、little、dog、attempt、bite和mailman都是词素。带下划线的语法词素是their、-al、-ed、to和the。
In building words (and phrases and sentences), two basic kinds of morphemes are used. Morphemes with richer lexical “vocabulary” meaning (referring to things and qualities and actions in the world) are called lexical morphemes or lexemes. Lexemes typically belong to the “major” part-of-speech categories of nouns (N), verbs (V), or adjectives (A) (see Box 3.1 in Chapter 3); simple lexemes may serve as the root of more complex words. On the other hand, morphemes that contribute mainly grammatical information or indicate relationships between the lexemes are called grammatical morphemes. In the sentence in (13) below, the words maniacal, little, dog, attempt, bite, and mailman are all lexemes. The grammatical morphemes, which have been underlined, are their, -al, -ed, to, and the.
| (13) |
他们那只 疯狂的小狗试图 咬邮递员。 Their maniacal little dog attempted to bite the mailman. |
语法词素是将句子中的词素结合在一起的粘合剂,显示它们之间的关系,还有助于在特定的对话语境中识别指称对象。在(13)中的句子中,代词their由语法特征(第三人称,复数)组成,这些特征通过一致性部分识别一些先前提到的指称对象(例如,John 和 Mary),同时表示所有者关系在 them 和词素dog之间。与词素the(在短语the mailman中)一样,their也有明确的指称,表明说话者假设听者知道所指的是谁。过去时标记 - ed告诉我们某个事件(“咬人企图”)已经发生。词素to是一种正式的标记手段(称为不定式标记),用于标记非时态动词(to bite )。最后,尽管maniacal这个词是一个词素(因为它是一个形容词,指代狗的属性,就像 little 一样),但它是一个复杂的词,由词素 - al添加到词根名词maniac而得。因此,- al具有将名词变成形容词的语法功能,表示“具有该名词的品质”。
Grammatical morphemes are the glue that holds the lexemes in a sentence together, shows their relations to each other, and also helps identify referents within a particular conversational context. In the sentence in (13), the pronoun their consists of grammatical features (third person, plural) that partially identify via agreement some previously mentioned referents (say, John and Mary), and simultaneously signals a possessor relation between them and the lexeme dog. Like the morpheme the (in the phrase the mailman), their also has definite reference, indicating that the speaker assumes the hearer knows who is being referred to. The past-tense marker -ed tells us that an event (the ‘biting-attempt’) has already happened. The morpheme to is a formal device (called an infinitive marker) for marking an untensed verb (to bite). Finally, although the word maniacal is a lexeme (because it is an adjective that refers to an attribute of the dog, just like little), it is a complex word derived by adding the morpheme -al to the root noun maniac. Thus, -al has the grammatical function of turning a noun into an adjective meaning ‘having the qualities of’ that noun.
词素和语法词素都可以是免费或绑定。绑定词素必须附着在词根或另一个词素上,但自由词素可以独立存在。英语中的大多数词素(如dog和bite)都是自由词素。后缀(如 -ed和-al)是绑定的。然而,在许多其他语言中,词根不是自由词素;它们必须与其他词素绑定在一起才能形成符合语法的单词。例如,在意大利语中,动词lavor的词根“工作”必须与时态和一致标记等语法词素绑定:
Both lexemes and grammatical morphemes can be either free or bound. Bound morphemes must be attached either to a root or another morpheme, but free morphemes can stand alone. Most lexemes in English, such as dog and bite, are free morphemes. Suffixes, like -ed and -al, are bound. In many other languages, however, lexical roots are not free morphemes; they must be bound with other morphemes to yield a grammatical word. In Italian, for example, the root of the verb lavor- ‘work’ must be bound with grammatical morphemes such as tense and agreement markers:
| (14) |
意大利语 Italian
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执行特定语法功能的词素在一种语言中可能是自由的,而在另一种语言中则是约束的。例如,英语不定式标记to(如动词短语to win the elect)是一个自由词素。它可以通过一个或多个中间词与动词分开(不管规范语法书怎么说!),如to very rarely win the elect。然而,在法语中,动词gagner(赢得)由词根gagn - 和不定式词素 - er组成,它们紧密结合在一起形成一个单词,不能分开。相反,英语中的常规过去时标记 - ed必须与动词紧密结合,如attempt-ed、walk-ed或call-ed,但在Koranko(一种西非语言)中,用来编码过去时态的词素是一个自由词素,一个独立的词:
A morpheme performing a particular grammatical function may be free in one language and bound in another. For example, the English infinitive marker to (as in the verb phrase to win the election) is a free morpheme. It can be separated from its verb by one or more intervening words (despite what prescriptive grammar books say!), as in to very narrowly win the election. In French, however, the verb gagner ‘to win’ consists of the root gagn- and the infinitive morpheme -er, which are tightly bound together in a single word and cannot be split up. Conversely, the regular past-tense marker -ed in English must be tightly bound to a verb, as in attempt-ed, walk-ed, or call-ed, but in Koranko (a West African language), the morpheme used to encode past tense is a free morpheme, an independent word:
| (15) |
Koranko(Kastenholz 1987:109,Julien 2002:112 引用) Koranko (Kastenholz 1987:109, cited in Julien 2002: 112)
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我们可以看出,Koranko 中的过去式词素yá是自由的,因为它可以通过中间的直接宾语(k㥕㥄l㥕mabol㥕'树枝') 与动词(kári '打破')分开。
We can see that the past morpheme yá in Koranko is free because it can be separated from its verb (kári ‘break’) by an intervening direct object (k㥕㥄l㥕mabol㥕 ‘tree branch’).
我们之前观察到,词素结合了形式和意义。然而,有时词素的确切形式会在某些条件下系统地变化,这很像音素可以根据其产生的语境发音为不同的音位变体,如第 1 章所述。事实上,影响词素形式的最常见因素之一是音系,或者更准确地说,是局部音系环境的某些方面。例如,在英语正字法中,常规名词通过添加s(或在某些情况下为es )来标记复数,但复数词素s的实际发音在 [s]、[z] 和 [ i z] 之间变化。考虑以下复数英语单词:
We observed earlier that morphemes combine both a form and a meaning. However, sometimes the exact form of a morpheme systematically varies under certain conditions, much like the way in which phonemes can be pronounced as different allophones depending upon the context in which they are produced, as observed in Chapter 1. And in fact, one of the most common factors influencing the form of a morpheme is phonology, or more precisely, some aspect of the local phonological environment. For example, in English orthography, regular nouns are marked for plural by adding s (or in some cases es) but the actual sound of the plural morpheme s varies between [s], [z], and [iz]. Consider the following pluralized English words:
| (16) |
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你能识别出所有的下列英语句子中有哪些词素?
Can you identify all the morphemes in the following English sentence?
音乐家们重新考虑了指挥家不寻常的提议。
The musicians reconsidered their director’s unusual proposal.
让我们逐字逐句地来看一下:
Let’s go word by word:
(16)中的例子表明,复数有三种可能的形式英语中常规名词的后缀。这些常规复数词素变体呈互补分布,称为同位素变体。换句话说,特定的常规复数形式完全取决于或受最终词素的音位制约。基音的音。[ i z] 形式属于一类摩擦音,称为咝音(/s、z、ʃ、ʒ、tʃ、dʒ/)。[-s其他清辅音(/p、f、θ、、k辅音形式中的每一种都使听清不同词根结尾后的复数标记变得更容易。
The examples in (16) show that there are three possible forms of the plural suffix for regular nouns in English. These regular plural morpheme variants are in complementary distribution and are called allomorphs. In other words, the particular regular plural form is completely predictable depending on, or phonologically conditioned by, the final sound of the base. The [iz] form follows a class of fricatives called sibilants (/s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/). The [-s] form follows all the other voiceless consonants (/p, f, θ, t, k/). The [-z] form follows all the voiced sounds (all vowels and all the voiced consonants). Each of these three plural forms makes it easier to hear the plural marking following different root word endings.
尽管音系因素常常造成语系变体,但语系变体也可能受到音系以外的因素的影响。例如,许多语言有不同的动词类(称为动词变位),它们决定了词缀的形式,例如协议标记。在意大利语中,动词lavorare(工作)、scrivere(写作)和dormire(睡觉)属于三种不同的变位类(有时分别称为 - are、- ere和 - ire 类,基于它们的不定式(“to”)形式,它们也是同位异形词)。后缀 - o附加在任何类中的动词词根上,表示“与第一人称单数主语一致”(1sg.),如下所示:
Although phonological factors are often responsible for allomorphic variation, allomorphy may also be conditioned by factors other than phonology. Many languages, for example, have different verb classes (called conjugations), which condition the form of affixes such as agreement markers. In Italian, the verbs lavorare ‘to work,’ scrivere ‘to write,’ and dormire ‘to sleep’ belong to three different conjugation classes (sometimes known as the -are, -ere, and -ire classes respectively, based on their infinitive (‘to’) forms, which are also allomorphs). The suffix -o attaches to a verb root in any class and means ‘agreement with a first-person, singular subject’ (1sg.), as shown below:
| (17) |
意大利语 Italian
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然而,对于一些其他的一致类别,比如“第二人称复数”(2pl.),这些变位类别中的动词需要不同形式的一致标记:
For some other agreement categories, however, such as ‘second person, plural’ (2pl.), verbs in these conjugation classes require different forms of the agreement marker:
| 拉沃拉特 | 斯克里维特 | 睡蚁 |
| 工作-2 PL | 写-2 PL | 睡眠-2 PL |
| 你(复数)工作' | “你(复数)写” | “你睡觉” |
这是形态条件同质异形的一个例子,因为共轭类是正式的形态类别。
This is an example of morphologically conditioned allomorphy, since conjugation classes are formal morphological categories.
最后,语义因素也可能在决定词素如何实现方面发挥作用。英语前缀un- (表示“不”)可以很容易地附加到(18)中第一列的形容词上,但不能附加到第二列(Katamba and Stonham 2006 : 80)。为什么不行?
Finally, semantic factors may also play a role in determining how morphemes can be realized. The English prefix un- (meaning ‘not’) can readily attach to adjectives in the first column in (18) but not the second (Katamba and Stonham 2006: 80). Why not?
| (18) |
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如果我们想表达ill、hated、sad、foolish和dirty的否定形式,我们只需使用自由词素变体not代替un -。在代表语义对比的对立两极的一对词中(例如 happy和sad),正值(happy)通常是未标记的(或更中性或正常)性质,通过添加词缀un-可以从中得出更明显的负值。已经包含负值(sad)的词素通常不能采用负词缀(* unsad)。
If we wanted to express the negated form of ill, hated, sad, foolish, and dirty, we’d simply have to use the free-morpheme variant not instead of un-. In a pair of words representing opposite poles of a semantic contrast (such as happy and sad), the positive value (happy) is usually the unmarked (or more neutral or normal) quality, from which the more marked negative value can be derived by adding the affix un-. Lexemes already containing the negative value (sad) often cannot take a negative affix (*unsad).
下面的土耳其语数据表现出异形现象(见第 1 章)。您能识别异形现象并确定是什么制约了它们吗?
The Turkish data below exhibit allomorphy (see Chapter 1). Can you identify the allomorphs and determine what is conditioning them?
从英语翻译中,你可以看到上面的每个土耳其语单词都有复数含义。你能找出每个单词的可能复数词素吗?(在真正的习得情况下,你会听到并能够对比这些单词在复数和单数语境中的不同表达,例如elma '苹果' 与elmalar '苹果',kedi '猫' 与kediler '猫'。)在某些情况下,复数形式为 - lar ,而在其他情况下则为 - ler。这种差异是可以预测的还是随机的?换句话说,如果你在学习土耳其语时遇到了一个你以前没听过的新单数名词,你知道如何将其变为复数吗?
From the English translations, you can see that every Turkish word above has a plural meaning. Can you identify a likely plural morpheme for each word? (In a true acquisition situation, you would hear – and be able to contrast – each of these words in both plural and singular contexts, such as elma ‘apple’ vs. elmalar ‘apples,’ and kedi ‘cat’ vs. kediler ‘cats.’) In some cases, the plural form is -lar whereas in the others it’s -ler. Is this difference predictable or is it random? In other words, if you were learning Turkish and came across a new singular noun that you hadn’t heard before, would you know how to pluralize it?
首先,词义似乎并不决定词素的形式。例如,观察身体部位、动物和建筑物,我们发现ba ş -lar表示“头”,但el-ler 表示“手”;at-lar 表示“马”,但kedi-ler 表示“猫”;banka-lar 表示“银行”,但otel-ler 表示“酒店”,等等。性别看起来也不太好;adam-lar表示“男人”,anne-ler表示“母亲”,但k ı z-lar 表示“女孩”也是女性。(事实上,土耳其语不区分语法性别。)词汇基础的最终发音可能决定使用哪种形式(就像在英语复数中一样),但例如,比较ip-ler与kitap-lar,它们都以 /p/ 结尾,或gün-ler与son-lar,它们都以 /n/ 结尾。以元音结尾的音碱基也形成对比,例如cami-ler与masa-lar。
First, it doesn’t look as if the meaning of the word conditions the morpheme’s form. For example, looking at body parts, animals, and buildings, we find baş-lar ‘heads’ but el-ler ‘hands’; at-lar ‘horses’ but kedi-ler ‘cats’; banka-lar ‘banks’ but otel-ler ‘hotels,’ and so on. Gender doesn’t look promising either; adam-lar ‘men’ is male and anne-ler ‘mothers’ is female, but kız-lar ‘girls’ is also female. (In fact, Turkish does not distinguish grammatical gender.) The final sound of the lexical base might determine which form to use (as it does in English plurals), but compare, for example, ip-ler vs. kitap-lar, both of which end in /p/, or gün-ler vs. son-lar, both of which end in /n/. Bases ending in a vowel also contrast, as in cami-ler vs. masa-lar.
现在看看每个词根的最后一个元音。列出与每个复数形式同时出现的元音,我们得到以下分布:
Now look at the last vowel in every root. Making a list of which ones co-occur with each plural form, we get the following distribution:
词根的尾元音具有 [+front] 特征时,后面会跟一个带有 [+front] 元音的复数后缀 (- ler ),而词根的尾元音具有 [−front] 特征时,后面会跟一个复数后缀带有 [-前] 元音 (- lar )。这个过程称为元音和谐,因为它涉及 (音系) 特征匹配,你可以将其视为一种音系“一致”。复数形式 - lar和 - ler是互补分布的同位素变体,在这种情况下,选择哪一种同位素变体取决于元音和谐,这是一种音系调节。
The roots whose final vowels have the feature [+front] are followed by the plural suffix with a [+front] vowel (-ler), whereas roots with [−front] final vowels are followed by the plural suffix with a [–front] vowel (-lar). This process is called vowel harmony, and since it involves (phonological) feature matching, you might think of it as a kind of phonological “agreement.” The plural forms -lar and -ler are allomorphs in complementary distribution, and the choice of one or the other allomorph is determined in this case by vowel harmony, a kind of phonological conditioning.
在本节中,我们将研究语言用来修改词素形式和含义的一些形态过程:
In this section we’ll examine some of the morphological processes languages use to modify the form and meaning of lexemes:
修改词根最常见的形态学过程是添加一些内容——即词缀过程。世界上大多数语言都使用某种词缀来表示单词的语法信息或与其他单词的关系。词缀是一种语法词素,根据定义,它必须与词根或另一个词缀绑定在一起。任何与词缀相连的形式,无论是简单还是复杂,都称为词基(或词干)。附着在词根右侧或末尾的词缀称为后缀。附着在词根左侧或前面的词缀称为前缀。例如,复杂的英语单词uninterpretability由词根词素explain、前缀un-和后缀-able和-ity组成。
The most common morphological process for modifying a root is by adding something to it – the process of affixation. Most of the world’s languages use some kind of affixing to indicate grammatical information about a word or its relation to other words. An affix is a grammatical morpheme which (by definition) must be bound to a root or to another affix. Any form an affix attaches to, whether simple or complex, is called a base (or a stem). Affixes which attach to the right, or end, of a base are called suffixes. Affixes which attach to the left, or front, of a base are called prefixes. The complex English word uninterpretability, for example, consists of the root lexeme interpret, a prefix un- and the suffixes -able, and -ity.
| (19) |
英语 English
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有些语言,例如土耳其语,主要使用后缀。我们之前观察到的土耳其语示例就体现了这一点,下面重复为(20) 。在这个单词中,词根Avrupa- “欧洲” 后面有 11 个后缀:
Some languages, such as Turkish, are primarily suffixing. This is shown in the Turkish example we observed earlier, repeated below as (20). In this word, there are eleven suffixes following the root Avrupa- ‘Europe’:
| (20) |
土耳其语(比尔德1995 : 56) Turkish (Beard 1995: 56) Avrupa-l ı -la ş -t ı l-am ı -yacak-lar-dan-s ı n- ı z。 Avrupa-lı-laş-tıl-a-mı-yacak-lar-dan-sın-ız. 欧洲-A-ize-导致-被动-潜在-NEG-FUT.PART-PL-ABL-2ND-PL Europe-an-ize-CAUSE-PASSIVE-POTENTIAL-NEG-FUT.PART-PL-ABL-2ND-PL “你们(所有人)都是无法变得像欧洲人一样的人。” ‘You (all) are among those who will not be able to be caused to become like Europeans.’ |
其他语言,例如齐切瓦语(马拉维的国语),大多是前缀;下面的例子显示了词根phwany “smash”之前的六个前缀:
Other languages, like Chichewa (the national language of Malawi), are mostly prefixing; the example below shows six prefixes preceding the root phwany ‘smash’:
| (21) |
齐切瓦语(Mchombo 1998:503) Chichewa (Mchombo 1998: 503)
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构建单词结构的最简单和最常见的方法是逐渐添加后缀或前缀以派生出更复杂的单词,如上文的英语、土耳其语和齐切瓦语示例。这种词缀有时被称为连接形态,因为离散的词素看起来就像串珠一样连接在一起(或串联起来)。
The simplest and most common way to build word structure is to cumulatively add suffixes or prefixes to derive a more complex word, as in the English, Turkish, and Chichewa examples above. This kind of affixation is sometimes referred to as concatenative morphology, since discrete morphemes appear linked together (or concatenated) like beads on a string.
齐切瓦语与其他非洲班图语一样,具有复杂的名词分类系统,我们将在 方框 2.7中简要讨论。数字“3”和“6”表示名词mkângo “狮子”属于名词类 3,而maûngu “南瓜”属于名词类 6。动词前缀中的数字表示主语一致性(与‘狮子’)和对象一致性(与‘南瓜’)。
Chichewa, like other African Bantu languages, has a complex system for classifying nouns, which we’ll briefly discuss in Box 2.7. The numbers ‘3’ and ‘6’ indicate that the noun mkângo ‘lion’ belongs to noun class 3 and maûngu ‘pumpkins’ to class 6. The numbers glossed in the verb prefixes indicate subject agreement (with ‘lion’) and object agreement (with ‘pumpkins’) respectively.
除了前缀和后缀外,有些语言还使用中缀,这是一种插入词根的词缀。在世界范围内,中缀的使用并不像后缀或前缀那么普遍。(22)中显示了来自他加禄语(菲律宾的国语)的动词词根插入的一个例子:
In addition to prefixes and suffixes, some languages make use of infixes, a kind of affix that is inserted inside a lexical root. Infixing is less common than suffixing or prefixing across the world’s languages. An example of verb root infixing from Tagalog (the national language of the Philippines) is shown in (22):
| (22) |
他加禄语(Himmelmann 2004 ) Tagalog (Himmelmann 2004)
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另一种不常见的词缀是环缀,即由两部分或不连续的词素围绕着词根。德语中许多过去分词都是这样形成的,如(23)所示:
Another unusual kind of affixation is circumfixing, in which a two-part or discontinuous morpheme surrounds a root. Many past participles in German are formed this way, as shown in (23):
| (23) |
德语 German
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虽然中缀和外缀涉及拆分词根或拆分语法词素(因此不是真正的连接过程),但特定词素和特定语法功能之间仍然存在一一对应关系。在塔加拉语中,中缀 - um-表示过去时。在德语中,过去分词是通过将不连续词素ge-t外缀在动词周围形成的。
Although infixing and circumfixing involve either splitting up the lexical root or splitting up the grammatical morpheme (and thus are not truly concatenative processes), there is still a one-to-one correspondence between a particular morpheme and a particular grammatical function. In Tagalog, the infix -um- indicates past tense. In German the past participle is formed by circumfixing the discontinuous morpheme ge-t around the verb.
在阿拉伯语和希伯来语。在这些语言中,某些元音序列散布在仅由辅音组成的抽象词根中。例如,阿拉伯语中的词根ktb与“写”的含义有关,但它是一个粘连词根;声音序列ktb永远不会单独发出,而必须用特定模式中的特定元音填充才能得出实际的单词。元音的特定选择和位置决定了单词的整体含义,如(24)所示:
An even more interesting kind of infixation is found in Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew. In these languages certain sequences of vowels are interspersed throughout an abstract lexical root consisting only of consonants. For example, the root ktb in Arabic is associated with the meaning ‘write’ but it is a bound root; the sequence of sounds ktb is never uttered by itself but must be filled in with specific vowels in a specific pattern in order to derive an actual word. The particular choice and position of vowels determines the overall meaning of the word, as shown in (24):
| (24) |
阿拉伯 Arabic
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在这种词根和元音模式形态中,某些语法类别(如“过去时”)不能与单个词缀相关联。相反,它们与整个模式或模板相关联,即叠加在仅由辅音组成的词汇词根上的元音。因此,阿拉伯语中带有过去标记的动词由辅音和元音模板组成,看起来像CaCaCa(其中 C 代表词根辅音,例如kataba),而现在进行时形式是aCCuC模板(例如aktub)。
In this kind of root-and-vowel-pattern morphology, certain grammatical categories like ‘past tense’ cannot be associated with an individual affix. Instead, they’re associated with an entire pattern, or template, of vowels superimposed upon a lexical root consisting of only consonants. Thus, a past-marked verb in Arabic consists of a consonant-and-vowel template that looks like CaCaCa (where C represents a root consonant, e.g. kataba), and the present progressive form is the aCCuC template (e.g. aktub).
尝试使用词根drs(意为“学习”)分析阿拉伯语构词。根据(24)中的例子,你如何用阿拉伯语表达“他学习过”、“已经学习过”、“正在学习”和“学校”?
Try analyzing Arabic word formation using the lexical root drs, meaning ‘study.’ Based on the examples in (24), how do you say ‘he studied,’ ‘has been studied,’ ‘be studying,’ and ‘school’ in Arabic?
假设你在学习他加禄语,并听到了(25)中所示的动词tawag ‘呼叫’和takbo ‘运行’的将来时形式:
Suppose you were learning Tagalog and heard the future-tense forms for the verbs tawag ‘call’ and takbo ‘run’ shown in (25):
| (25) |
他加禄语(Schachter 和 Otanes 1972;Himmelmann 2004) Tagalog (Schachter and Otanes 1972; Himmelmann 2004)
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您可能会猜想塔加拉语中的将来时态词素是前缀ta - “将”。基于如此有限的数据样本,这是一个很好的猜测。但假设您随后听到了bisita “访问”和bili “购买”的将来时态形式:
You might guess that the future-tense morpheme in Tagalog is the prefix ta- ‘will.’ This would be a good guess on the basis of such a limited sample of data. But suppose you then heard the future-tense forms of bisita ‘visit’ and bili ‘buy’:
| 比西塔 | '访问' | 比比西塔 | ‘将会访问’ |
| 比利 | '买' | 比比利 | ‘会买’ |
现在你至少有两个可能的假设:要么有两个(或更多)不同的词素(ta - 和bi -)用于表达将来时态,要么发生了一些更有趣的事情。更多数据应该可以帮助你做出决定:
Now you have at least two possible hypotheses: either there are two (or more) distinct morphemes (ta- and bi-) for expressing the future tense, or something else a little more interesting is going on. More data should help you decide:
| 泛希腊社会主义运动 | '进入' | 人民报 | ‘将进入’ |
| 阿利斯 | '离开' | 阿里 | ‘将会离开’ |
| 達洛 | '出席' | 达达洛 | ‘将出席’ |
| 拉卡德 | '走' | 拉拉卡德 | ‘会走路’ |
| 加瓦 | '制作' | 嘎嘎川 | ‘将会’ |
| 凯恩 | '吃' | 卡凯恩 | ‘会吃’ |
| 苏诺德 | '服从' | 苏苏诺德 | ‘会服从’ |
对于每个将来时态,词根的第一个音节被复制并添加到词根的前缀中,以形成将来时态。虽然在某些方面看起来像是简单的前缀,但并没有一个预先指定的词素,甚至没有一组词素可以指出具有“将来”的含义。相反,将来时态是通过形态学过程衍生出来的,该过程复制每个词根的音素子集。这个复制过程称为重复。
For each of the future forms, the first syllable of the root is copied and prefixed to the root to form the future tense. Although it looks like a case of simple prefixation in some respects, there is no single pre-specified morpheme or even a set of morphemes that we could point to as having the meaning ‘future.’ Rather, the future tense is derived by a morphological process that copies a subset of the phonemes of each individual root. This copying process is called reduplication.
在重复中,有时会复制整个单词,有时只复制单词的一部分(如上面的他加禄语例子),有时会复制词根的一部分以及一些固定或预先指定的词素。在以下伊洛卡诺语(菲律宾的另一种语言)的例子中,使用重叠从抽象名词派生出具有“预示”意义的动词:
In reduplication, sometimes the entire word is copied, or sometimes just part of the word (as in the Tagalog examples above), and sometimes part of the root is copied along with some fixed or pre-specified morpheme. In the following example from Ilokano (another language spoken in the Philippines), reduplication is used to derive a verb with a “pretentative” meaning from an abstract noun:
| (26) |
伊洛卡诺(Rubino 2002) Ilokano (Rubino 2002)
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在“假装”动词形式中,有一个特定的前缀agiN - 附加在从词根复制的第一个 CV(辅音和元音)上。前缀中的大写 N表示前缀中的最后一个声音是鼻音,它与词根第一个(复制的)辅音的发音部位同化。因此,在singpet “美德”的情况下,词根的初始si - 被复制,这反过来决定(或决定) agin - 的最后一个鼻音辅音(因为 /s/ 和 /n/ 共享相同的发音部位),从而产生“假装”动词形式aginsisingpet “假装有德行”。同样,对于baknang,词根的初始ba - 被复制并决定前缀agim -的形式(因为 /b/ 和 /m/ 共享相同的发音部位)。伊洛卡诺语预示结构提供了另一个例子,说明诸如鼻音同化之类的音系过程通常如何决定词素的最终形式。
In the ‘pretend’ verbal forms there is a specific prefix agiN- that attaches to the first CV (consonant and vowel) copied from the root. The capital N in the prefix indicates that the last sound in the prefix is a nasal which assimilates to the place of articulation of the first (copied) consonant of the root. So in the case of singpet ‘virtue,’ the initial si- of the root is copied, which in turn determines (or conditions) the final nasal consonant of agin- (since /s/ and /n/ share the same place of articulation), to yield the ‘pretend’ verbal form aginsisingpet ‘pretend to be virtuous.’ Similarly, for baknang, the initial ba- of the root is copied and conditions the form of the prefix agim- (since /b/ and /m/ share the same place of articulation). The Ilokano pretentative construction offers another example of how phonological processes like nasal assimilation often condition the ultimate form of morphemes.
尝试发音以下音标转录的话语,其中涉及重复,对于每个派生词,英语词根的一部分被复制并与一些预先指定的材料组合。你能重建英语词根并破译话语吗?
Try pronouncing the following phonetically transcribed utterance, which involves reduplication in which, for every derived word, part of an English root is copied and combined with some pre-specified material. Can you reconstruct the English roots and decipher the utterance?
然后看看你是否可以根据(部分)重复来分析派生的单词。
Then see if you can analyze the derived words in terms of (partial) reduplication.
u-dej u-jej o-nej a ʊ -hej u-tej ik-spej I g-pej æt i n-lej?
u-dej u-jej o-nej aʊ-hej u-tej ik-spej Ig-pej ætin-lej?
如果你小时候学过基于英语的单词游戏 Pig Latin,那么上面单词的模式应该听起来很熟悉。一个懂英语但不懂 Pig Latin 的语言学家会如何分析这个话语?观察一下,每个单词都以包含至少一个辅音和固定序列 - ej 的词素结尾,得出后缀 - C(C)ej。此后缀中的辅音对于每个单词都是不同的,这应该给我们一个线索,即辅音是从词根复制而来的。但是,在上面的前四个单词中,后缀所附加的词根甚至不包含辅音。事实上,话语中的每个单词都以元音开头。这说明从词根复制的辅音已从派生词中词根的初始位置删除。根据我们的假设,我们得到了以下英语词根(以音标表示)和相应的派生 Pig Latin 词:
If you learned the English-based word game Pig Latin as a child, the pattern in the words above should sound familiar. How might a linguist who knew English but didn’t know Pig Latin analyze this utterance? Observe that every word ends with a morpheme containing at least one consonant and the fixed sequence -ej, yielding the suffix -C(C)ej. The consonant in this suffix is different for every word, which should give us a clue that the consonant is what’s being copied from the root. But the base to which the suffix is affixed in each of the first four words above doesn’t even contain a consonant. In fact every word in the utterance begins with a vowel sound. That’s a clue that the consonant copied from the root has been deleted from the initial position of the root in the derived word. Following up on our hypothesis, we get the following English roots (in phonetic transcription) and the corresponding derived Pig Latin words:
这种语言游戏出现在许多不同的语言中,插入不同类型的单词或单词部分的重复。试着在其他语言中找到一些“Pig-Latin”数据,看看你是否能破解密码。音节、尾音和其他韵律类别的知识(见第 1 章)可能有助于你破译各种语言。
Language games of this sort occur in many different languages with different types of insertions of reduplication of words or parts of words. Try and find some “Pig-Latin” data in other languages and see if you can crack the code. Knowledge of syllables, codas, and other prosodic categories (see Chapter 1) may help you decipher the various languages.
另一种形态操作称为元音变换,它通过在词根中用一个元音替换另一个元音来表示语法变化。考虑英语动词中的过去时标记,这些动词可以是规则的,也可以是不规则的。
Another kind of morphological operation, called ablaut, signals a grammatical change by substituting one vowel for another in a lexical root. Consider past-tense marking in English verbs, which may be regular or irregular.
| (27) |
英语 English
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规则动词的过去时标记只需将词根与语法词素ed连接即可。但不规则动词的过去时形成是一个非连接过程;过去时不是通过添加前缀或后缀来标记,而是通过元音变化来标记。此外,这些动词没有明确可识别的、预先指定的词素我们可以将其与语法意义“过去”联系起来。特定的元音变化将相当特殊地取决于特定的(不规则的)词根词素,并且必须记住。在这些情况下,我们不能说过去时态词素只是改变的元音;相反,由元音变换的形态过程产生的整个词形(例如,rode)是过去时态形式。在这些动词中,词汇意义和语法功能“过去”比在常规过去时标记中更加综合地融合。
The regular verbs are marked for past tense by simply concatenating the root with the grammatical morpheme -ed. But forming the past tense for irregular verbs is a nonconcatenative process; the past tense is not marked by adding a prefix or suffix but by a vowel change. Moreover, for these verbs there is no clearly identifiable, pre-specified morpheme that we can associate with the grammatical meaning ‘past.’ The particular vowel change will depend rather idiosyncratically on the particular (irregular) root lexeme, and must be memorized. In these cases, we can’t say that the past-tense morpheme is just the changed vowel; rather, the whole word form (for example, rode) resulting from the morphological process of ablaut is the past-tense form. In these verbs, the lexical meaning and the grammatical function ‘past’ are more synthetically fused than in regular past-tense marking.
更根本的是,有时语法上相关的形式彼此之间几乎没有相似之处。考虑以下一对:
More radically, sometimes grammatically related forms bear very little resemblance to each other. Consider the following pairs:
| (28) |
英语 English
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在这些情况下,首辅音后的所有词根都被删除了。(28)中的所有过去时形式都具有相同的韵律 (/- ɔ t/),尽管它们的词素词根非常不同。这是一种部分补充的情况,其中几乎整个词根似乎已被完全不同的形式替换,只留下原始的词根。英语对go–went是完全补充的情况 – went与go完全没有任何共同之处。
In these cases, all of the root after the initial consonant has been deleted. All the past-tense forms in (28) have the same rhyme (/-ɔt/) despite having very different lexeme roots. This is a case of partial suppletion, in which nearly the entire root appears to have been replaced by a completely different form, leaving only the original root onsets. The English pair go–went is a case of total suppletion – went shares nothing at all with go.
另一种常用于表示语法意义对比的非连接形态过程是使用声调。在索马里语中,一些名词可以复数化的一种方法是将单数形式倒数第二个音节(倒数第二个音节)的高音调移到复数形式的最后一个音节上:
Another nonconcatenative morphological process often used to signal a contrast in grammatical meaning is the use of tone. In Somali, one way in which some nouns can be pluralized is by shifting the high tone on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable in the singular form onto the final syllable in the plural:
| (29) |
索马里语(Lecarme 2002 ) Somali (Lecarme 2002)
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有些语言使用音节重音的变化来表示语法信息。例如,一些英语名词就是通过将重音从第二个音节移到第一个音节而从动词派生出来的。将通过重音转移而派生出的名词(第二列)与通过词缀而从相同动词派生出的名词(第三列)进行比较。
Some languages use changes in syllable stress to indicate grammatical information. For example, some English nouns have been derived from verbs simply by shifting the stress from the second to the first syllable. Compare the nouns derived by stress shift (in the second column) with the nouns derived from the same verbs via affixation (in the third column).
在本节中,我们研究了世界语言构建和修改词结构的一些方式,包括词缀、重复、内部词根变化以及声调和重音的变化。所有这些操作的目的是什么?我们接下来将讨论这个问题。
In this section we have looked at some of the ways in which the world’s languages build and modify the structure of words, including affixation, reduplication, internal root change, and shifts in tone and stress. What purposes do all these operations serve? We turn next to that question.
传统上,形态过程分为两大类,每类都有不同的功能。在主要的词汇类别(名词 (N)、动词 (V) 和形容词 (A))中,派生形态从现有词素中创建新的词素,并且通常会改变含义。在上面的例子 (30)中,我们看到可以通过两种不同的操作从动词convict派生出两个不同的名词。第一个名词cónvict是通过重音转换派生的,表示已被定罪的人。第二个名词“convict ”由词缀派生而来,表示被定罪的结果。在这种情况下,重音移位和词缀的形态操作都用于派生目的,因为两个词素(名词)是由另一个词素(动词)创建的。
Morphological processes are traditionally classified into two broad types, each with a rather different function. Among the major lexical categories – nouns (N), verbs (V), and adjectives (A) – derivational morphology creates new lexemes from existing ones, often with a change in meaning. In example (30) above, we saw that it is possible to derive two different nouns from the verb convict via two different operations. The first noun, cónvict, was derived by stress shift and denotes a person who has been convicted. The second noun, conviction, was derived by affixation and denotes the outcome or result of being convicted. In this case, the morphological operations of stress shift and affixation were both used for derivational purposes, since two lexemes (nouns) were created from another lexeme (a verb).
另一方面, 屈折形态根据语言特定的句法要求,为词素添加语法信息。考虑以下英语句子:
Inflectional morphology, on the other hand, adds grammatical information to a lexeme, in accordance with the particular syntactic requirements of a language. Consider the following English sentence:
| (31) |
他计划几周后与她联系。 He plans to contact her in a few weeks. |
代词he和her的特定(补缀)形式是根据它们在句子中分别作为主语和宾语所起的句法作用而要求的;此外,动词plan必须加上 -s以与其第三人称单数 (3sg.) 主语一致,名词week也必须加上复数-s,这是量词短语a few 的要求。因此,在这个例子中,补缀和词缀的形态机制都用于屈折目的——传达语法信息。考虑一下,如果不满足这些特定的句法要求,即如果使用了错误的代词补缀形式或没有添加所需的词缀,结果会有多么不合语法:
The particular (suppletive) forms of the pronouns he and her are required by the syntactic roles they play in the sentence as subject and object, respectively; furthermore, the verb plan must be affixed with -s to agree with its third-person, singular (3sg.) subject, and the noun week must also be affixed with plural -s as required by the quantifier phrase a few. Thus, in this example, the morphological mechanisms of suppletion and affixation were both used for inflectional purposes – to convey grammatical information. Consider how ungrammatical the result would be if these particular syntactic requirements were not met; that is, if the wrong suppletive forms of the pronouns were used or if the required affixes were not added:
| (32) |
*他计划几周后联系她。 *Him plan to contact she in a few week. |
派生和屈折经常同时出现在同一个单词中,尽管在英语中每个单词通常只有一个屈折操作。(可能有多个派生操作。)考虑复杂的英语单词dehydratedifiers。创建这个词需要三个派生操作和一个屈折操作,每个后续步骤都建立在前一个操作的基础上:
Both derivation and inflection often co-occur within the same word, although in English there is typically only one inflectional operation per word. (There may be several derivational ones.) Consider the complex English word dehumidifiers. Creating this word requires three derivational operations and one inflectional operation, each subsequent step building on the base of the previous one:
通常,如果形态操作导致词类发生变化(例如从形容词变为动词,如hydration → hydrify),则该过程被认为是派生过程,因为从现有词素中创建了新的大类词素。但是,并非所有派生操作都会导致类别变化;例如,上面的前缀de-附加到动词上并派生出具有不同含义的另一个动词。另一方面,词形变化通常不会导致类别变化。例如,在名词上添加复数词缀只会在语法上增强该名词;它不会改变其类别。类似地,在名词上添加动词的一致标记会产生相同的动词,但会添加一个正式特征。我们将在下一节中仔细研究派生,并在下一节中研究词形变化。
Typically, if a morphological operation causes a word-category change (such as from adjective to verb, as in humid → humidify), the process is considered derivational, since a new major-category lexeme has been created from an existing one. However, not all derivational operations cause a category change; for example, the prefix de- above attaches to a verb and derives another verb with a different meaning. Inflection, on the other hand, does not usually produce a category change. Adding a plural affix to a noun, for example, only grammatically augments that noun; it does not change its category. Similarly, adding an agreement marker to a verb results in the same verb, but one with an added formal feature. We will take a closer look at derivation in the next section, and at inflection in the following section.
如上所述,派生从现有词素中创建或派生新词素。它允许新词进入一种语言,即使有时只是在特定对话、杂志文本或电子邮件中短暂出现。派生对于更紧凑地表达短语也非常有用。例如,用科学家、政治家或银行家来指代在科学、政治或银行领域工作的人比反复使用更繁琐的短语(如“在…领域工作的人”)要有效得多。派生是一种速记系统,它使我们能够节省时间——通过将更多信息打包到更短的话语中。
As mentioned above, derivation creates or derives new lexemes from existing ones. It allows new words to enter a language, even if sometimes only fleetingly in a particular conversation or magazine text or e-mail message. Derivation is also extremely useful for expressing phrases more compactly. It is much more efficient, for instance, to refer to someone working in the field of science, politics, or banking as a scientist, politician, or banker than to have to repeatedly use more cumbersome phrases such as “someone who works in the field of …” Derivation is a kind of shorthand system that allows us to economize – by packing more information into shorter utterances.
尽管世界上的各种语言都采用了上述所有的形态过程来派生新词,但在本节中我们将重点讨论其中两种:词缀(最常见的过程)和另一种与派生特别相关的形态过程——复合词。
Although all the morphological processes outlined above are employed among the world’s languages to derive new words, in this section we will focus on two: affixation (the most common process), and another kind of morphological process especially relevant to derivation – compounding.
派生词缀是世界上所有语言中最常见的从一个词素派生出另一个词素的方式。如上所述,派生通常会改变单词的词汇类别,或其含义,或两者兼而有之。我们可以在下面的各种语言中观察到一些这样的例子:
Derivational affixation is the most common way among the world’s languages to derive one lexeme from another. As mentioned above, derivation often changes the lexical category of a word, or its meaning, or both. We can observe some examples of this in various languages below:
| (34) |
普通话(Li and Thompson 1981:41-42) Mandarin Chinese (Li and Thompson 1981: 41–42)
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在上述每个例子中,后缀都被应用于特定类型的词素以派生出另一个词素。在许多情况下,范畴发生了变化;例如,德语后缀 - ung应用于动词以派生出表示动词结果的名词(zerstör -'破坏' → Zerstörung '破坏')。(德语正字法中名词通常大写。)法语后缀 - esse附加在形容词上以派生出表示“存在状态或性质 A”之类的名词(faible '弱' → faiblesse '弱')。中文后缀 - ji ā从另一个名词派生出名词;这里没有范畴变化,但增加了施事意义 — 即在基本名词领域中实践的人(k ē xué '科学' → k ē xuéji ā '科学家')。
In each of the examples above, a suffix has been applied to a particular kind of lexeme to derive another. In many cases, there is a category change; for example, the suffix -ung in German applies to verbs to derive a noun indicating a result of the verb (zerstör -‘destroy’ → Zerstörung ‘destruction’). (Nouns are conventionally capitalized in German orthography.) The French suffix -esse attaches to adjectives to derive nouns meaning something like ‘the state or quality of being A’ (faible ‘weak’ → faiblesse ‘weakness’). The Chinese suffix -jiā derives a noun from another noun; here there is no category change but an agentive meaning is added — that of someone who practices in the field of the base noun (kēxué ‘science’ → kēxuéjiā ‘scientist’).
现在让我们来看看英语,这是一种派生形态相当丰富的语言,其中几个不同的词缀有时具有相似的功能。考虑以下数据:
Let’s turn now to English, a language that is quite rich in derivational morphology, with several different affixes sometimes sharing a similar function. Consider the following data:
| (35) |
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在(35)中的每个单词中,都派生出一个与词根具有明显施事关系的名词:歌手唱歌,小提琴手拉小提琴,魔术师表演魔术,申请人申请某事,恶作剧者恶作剧,厨师做饭。这些例子中的施事意义由五个不同的后缀来表达,或者像cook一样,根本不用任何后缀来表达(后一种过程称为零导数)。
In each word in (35), a noun has been derived that bears an obvious agentive relation to the root: a singer sings, a violinist plays the violin, a magician performs magic, an applicant applies for something, a prankster commits pranks, and a cook cooks. The agentive meaning in these examples is expressed by five different suffixes or, as in the case of cook, by nothing at all (the latter process is called zero derivation).
但是,并不是上述(35)中的所有词缀都可以自由地附加到任何词根上。例如,后缀 - er只能附加到动词上(歌手、吸烟者),而后缀 - ist只能附加到名词或形容词上(小提琴家、漫画家),而 - ian只能附加到名词上,尤其是那些源自希腊语的名词(数学家、政治家)。
However, not all the affixes in (35) above can attach freely to any root. The suffix -er, for example, can only attach to verbs (singer, smoker), while the suffix -ist attaches only to nouns or adjectives (violinist, cartoonist), and -ian attaches only to nouns, especially those of Greek origin (mathematician, politician).
因为派生词缀在修饰对象方面是有选择性的,所以它们在复合词中通常以特定的顺序应用。再考虑一下我们之前的例子dehydratedifier 。虽然上面(33)中已经清楚地说明了每个步骤的顺序,但我们可以使用各种方法更正式地表示派生顺序,例如(36a)中所示的树形图、括号(36b)或简单编号(36c):
Because derivational affixes are selective in what they can modify, they generally apply in a particular order within a complex word. Consider again our earlier example of dehumidifier. Although the order of each step was spelled out in (33) above, we can more formally notate the derivational order by using various methods, such as a tree diagram as shown in (36a), bracketing (36b), or simple numbering (36c):
| (36) |
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下面列出了英语的许多派生词缀。
Some of the many derivational affixes of English are shown below.
| (37) |
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有些派生词缀非常多产;也就是说,它们几乎无一例外地可以应用于某种词根。例如,词缀 -able可以自由地附加到及物动词上,派生出一个新的形容词,其含义是“能够被 V-ed”(如washable、faxable、analyzable)。另一方面,有些派生词缀只出现在少数单词不具生产力,例如 -dom (王国、智慧、无聊)和 -th (温暖、真理、宽度)。在语言历史的某个时期非常有生产力的派生词缀可能会随着时间的推移而变得不那么有生产力。女性化后缀 -ess曾经比现在更有生产力。虽然仍然有一些常用词,如女演员、公主和女神,但(38)中的词也曾在英语中被广泛使用:
Some derivational affixes are very productive; that is, they can apply almost without exception to a certain kind of base. For example, the affix -able freely attaches to transitive verbs, deriving a new adjective with the meaning ‘able to be V-ed’ (as in washable, faxable, analyzable). On the other hand, some derivational affixes occur in only a small number of words and aren’t productive, such as -dom (kingdom, wisdom, boredom) and -th (warmth, truth, width). Derivational affixes that are very productive at some point in the history of a language may become less so over time. The feminizing suffix -ess used to be more productive than it is today. Although there are still some words in common usage such as actress, princess, and goddess, the words in (38) were also once more widely used in English:
| (38) |
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这种下降词缀的生产力很可能受到社会因素的推动,这些因素有利于使用不强调性别或完全中性的词语,例如使用空乘人员(而不是空姐)和服务员(而不是女服务员)。
This decline in the productivity of -ess affixation has likely been fueled by social factors that favor terms that de-emphasize or are completely neutral with regard to sex, such as flight attendant (instead of stewardess) and server (instead of waitress).
复合是两个(或更多)元素的组合词素形成单个新词素。由于复合总是会导致新词素的产生,因此它是派生过程的一个很好的例子。在英语和许多其他语言中,复合非常高效,是新词汇的主要来源。下面是一些英语示例:
Compounding is the concatenation of two (or more) lexemes to form a single new lexeme. Because compounding always results in the creation of a new lexeme, it is a good example of a derivational process. In English and many other languages, compounding is highly productive and a primary source of new vocabulary. Some English examples are shown below:
| (39) |
英语 English
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如上所示,英语复合词有时写成一个单词,或用空格或连字符分隔的单词;然而,语言学家认为它们都是复合词。英语复合词的典型发音是重音落在双词素复合词的第一个词素上(尽管也有例外)。回想一下复合词gréenhouse(种植植物的地方)和短语green hóuse(绿色的房子)之间的发音差异。
As shown above, English compounds are sometimes written as a single word, or as words separated by a space or a hyphen; however, they are all considered by linguists to be compounds. The characteristic pronunciation for English compounds is for the stress to fall on the first lexeme in a two-lexeme compound (although there are exceptions). Recall the difference in pronunciation between the compounded word gréenhouse (a place to grow plants) vs. the phrase green hóuse (a house that is green).
在某些语言中,例如英语、德语和荷兰语,复合词可以是高度递归的,这意味着派生的复合词可以作为进一步复合词的基础:
In some languages, such as English, German, and Dutch, compounding can be highly recursive, meaning that a derived compound can serve as the base for further compounding:
| (40) |
脚趾+指甲 toe + nail 趾甲+指甲刀 toenail + clipper 趾甲剪 + 事故 toenail clipper + accident 趾甲剪事故 + 保险 toenail clipper accident + insurance 趾甲剪意外保险+公司 toenail clipper accident insurance + company 趾甲剪事故保险公司+员工 toenail clipper accident insurance company + employee 趾甲剪事故保险公司员工+福利等 toenail clipper accident insurance company employee + benefits etc. |
我们可能会问,像toenail clipper accident insurance company ... 这样的复合词是否真的是单词而不是句法短语。似乎每个人都同意toenail是一个单词,甚至toenail clipper看起来仍然很像单词。是否有某个可定义的点,在那个点上,复合词会失去其单词地位并成为句法短语?如果您回想一下前面示例 (11)中显示的高度复杂的派生土耳其语单词,在其他语言中必须将其翻译为整个复合句,您就会明白为什么语言学家多年来一直在争论这个问题!然而,即使是上面(40)中最复杂的形式,仍然更像单词而不是短语。回想一下,形态派生使话语更紧凑;现在想象一下我们需要捕捉类似含义的句法短语的复杂性:“如果发生涉及使用用于修剪脚趾指甲的剪刀的事故,销售保险的公司的员工可获得福利。” (甚至这个可怕的短语也包含“捷径”——派生词employees、insurance和clippers。)
We might ask whether compounds like toenail clipper accident insurance company … are really words rather than syntactic phrases. Everyone seems to agree that toenail is a word and even toenail clipper still seems pretty wordlike. Is there some definable point at which complex words lose their wordhood status and become syntactic phrases? If you recall the highly complex derived Turkish word shown earlier in example (11) that must be translated as an entire complex sentence in other languages, you’ll understand why linguists have been debating this question for years! And yet, even the most complex form in (40) above is still more wordlike than phrasal. Recall that morphological derivation renders utterances more compact; now imagine the complexity of the sort of syntactic phrase we’d need to capture a similar meaning: ‘the benefits of the employees of a company that sells insurance in case of accidents that involve the use of clippers that are used to clip the nails on one’s toes.’ (And even this horrid phrase contains ‘shortcuts’ – the derived words employees, insurance, and clippers.)
在(40)中的每个连续推导中,最右边的元素标识了复合词是什么;换句话说,趾甲剪是一种特殊类型的剪甲器(而不是树篱剪或鼻毛剪);趾甲剪事故是以某种方式涉及趾甲剪的事故,等等。这种识别元素称为中心词;它的含义和词性类别决定了整个复合词的含义和词性类别。英语复合词通常以右为中心。因此,巧克力牛奶是一种牛奶,而牛奶巧克力是一种巧克力。这两个复合词都是名词,因为牛奶和巧克力都是名词。下面的例子展示了复合词中以右为中心的情况,这些复合词涉及各种词类,以及我们迄今为止研究过的名词-名词复合类型。
In each successive derivation in (40), it is the rightmost element that identifies what the compounded word is; in other words, a toenail clipper is a particular kind of clipper (as opposed to say, a hedge clipper or nose-hair clipper); a toenail clipper accident is an accident that somehow involves a toenail clipper, etc. This identifying element is called the head; its meaning and part-of-speech category determine that of the entire compound overall. English compounds are typically right-headed. Thus, chocolate milk is a kind of milk but milk chocolate is a kind of chocolate. Both compounds are nouns, because both milk and chocolate are nouns. The examples below demonstrate right-headedness in compounds involving various word categories in addition to the type of noun–noun compounding we have looked at so far.
| (41) |
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然而,英语中有许多复合词,其整体类别和含义并不由最右边的元素决定。(42)中给出了几个例子:
However, there are many compounds in English in which the overall category and meaning are not determined by the rightmost element. A few examples are given in (42):
| (42) |
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此外,英语中有一类非常有效的复合词,其中某些类型的动词短语(动词加副词、介词或动词小品词)被复合成名词。在这种情况下,右头概括根本不成立:
Moreover, there is a quite productive class of compounding in English in which certain types of verb phrases (verbs plus adverbs, prepositions or verb particles) are compounded into nouns. In this case, the right-head generalization does not hold at all:
| (43) |
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在这些情况下,除了复合之外,还应用了零派生的形态过程,将动词短语(如break dówn)变成复合名词(bréakdown)。由于复合词中的词素均未决定其整体语法类别或含义,因此这些复合词通常被视为无头词。
In these cases, the morphological process of zero derivation has applied in addition to compounding, turning verbal phrases (like break dówn) into compound nouns (bréakdown). Since neither lexeme in the compound determines its overall grammatical category or meaning, these compounds are generally considered unheaded.
下面提供了其他语言中一些复合词的例子。你能辨别出它们是右撇子还是左撇子吗?
Some examples of compounds in other languages are provided below. Can you identify whether they are right-headed or left-headed?
为了帮助确定每个化合物的头部,我们可以应用上面使用的简单“是”测试;例如,巧克力牛奶“是一种”牛奶,而不是一种巧克力,因此牛奶是头部,化合物是右头部。让我们分析一下上面的几个化合物。
To help determine the head of each compound, we can apply the simple ‘is a’ test employed above; for example, chocolate milk ‘is a’ kind of milk, not a kind of chocolate, and thus milk is the head and the compound is right-headed. Let’s analyze a few of the above compounds.
在希伯来语中,复合词orex-din “律师”是指实践(“执行”)法律的人,而不是一种法律;因此,我们推断单词orex “执行者”是复合词的中心词,而复合词的中心词是左撇子。现在看看另一个希伯来语复合词tapúax-adama “土豆”。土豆是一种苹果还是一种泥土?嗯,从比喻上讲,它更接近于一种苹果而不是一种泥土。(对于那些懂法语的人来说,它与法语单词“土豆”的相似之处显而易见:pomme de terre “泥土苹果”。)因此,我们得出结论,tapúax “苹果”是中心词,而复合词的中心词是左撇子。从我们非常有限的数据样本来看,希伯来语复合词的中心词似乎是左撇子。
In Hebrew, the compound orex-din ‘lawyer’ is a person who practices (‘conducts’) law, rather than a kind of law; therefore, we deduce that the word orex ‘conductor’ is the head of the compound and the compound is left-headed. Now look at the other Hebrew compound, tapúax-adama ‘potato.’ Is a potato a kind of apple or a kind of earth? Well, metaphorically, it’s much closer to being a kind of apple than a kind of earth. (For those who know French, the resemblance to the French word for ‘potato’ will be obvious: pomme de terre ‘earth apple.’) Thus we conclude that tapúax ‘apple’ is the head and the compound is left-headed. From our very limited sample of data it appears that Hebrew compounds are left-headed.
接下来我们来看看日语复合词kosi-kakeru(坐下)。第一个词kosi(腰部)是名词,第二个词kakeru(挂起)是动词;由此产生的复合词是动词。哪个元素是中心词?因为坐下是一种“挂起”的腰部,而不是一种腰部,而且因为由此产生的复合词是动词,总的来说, kakeru “hang”似乎是中心词,而复合词是右头词。另一个日语复合词 hai-zara “ashtray”也明显是右头词:ashtray 是一种盘子,而不是一种灰烬。日语中的复合词似乎是右头词(但当然我们需要更多数据来证实这一点)。
Next let’s turn to the Japanese compound kosi-kakeru ‘to sit down.’ The first word kosi ‘waist’ is a noun and the second kakeru ‘hang’ is a verb; the resulting compound is a verb. Which element is the head? Since sitting down is a kind of “hanging” of one’s waist rather than a kind of waist and since the resulting compound is a verb overall, it appears that kakeru ‘hang’ is the head and the compound is right-headed. The other Japanese compound hai-zara ‘ashtray’ is also clearly right-headed: an ashtray is a kind of plate, not a kind of ash. It appears that compounding in Japanese is right-headed (but of course we’d need more data to confirm this).
类似的分析表明,上述中文复合词是右手词,而 Jacaltec 中的复合词是左手词。
Similar analyses indicate that the compounds in Chinese above are right-headed, whereas those in Jacaltec are left-headed.
我们之前观察到,形态屈折会根据语言的特定句法要求为词素添加语法信息。添加的信息类型表示一种属性或语法对比中的 特征,例如单数与复数、第一人称与第二人称、阳性与阴性、过去与非过去,等等。我们所说的“语言的句法要求”是指特定语言要求我们做出这种对比区分的语境。例如,以下英语句子中量词two创造了一个语境,其中语法特征 [+plural] 必须在任何可以填补以下句子空白的名词上实现:
We observed earlier that morphological inflection adds grammatical information to a lexeme, depending on the particular syntactic requirements of a language. The kind of information added indicates a property or a feature within a set of grammatical contrasts, such as singular vs. plural, first person vs. second, masculine vs. feminine, past vs. nonpast, and many others. By “syntactic requirements of a language,” we mean contexts in which a particular language requires us to make such a contrastive distinction. For example, the presence of the quantifier two in the following English sentence creates a context in which the grammatical feature [+plural] must be realized on any noun that could fill in the blank in the following sentence:
| (44) |
奥利维亚昨天在网上买了两个_____。 Olivia bought two_____online yesterday. |
“复数”是英语(以及许多其他语言)名词的一个特征,无论它是简单名词(如book)还是派生复杂名词(如dehydratedifier)。还需要注意的是,英语句法规则在这种情况下要求的只是语法信息 [+plural],而不是任何特定的形态形式。例如,我们仍然可以通过在空白处填入不规则复数名词mice或theses来生成一个语法正确的句子。换句话说,只要名词是复数,语法就“不关心”选择哪种特定形式。特定语言的形态规则的工作是确定抽象特征应如何在音系上实现并选择正确的形式。
“Plural” is a feature associated with nouns in English (and many other languages), whether it’s a simple noun, such as book, or a derivationally complex one, such as dehumidifier. It’s also important to note that it is merely the grammatical information [+plural] that is required in this context by the rules of English syntax, rather than any particular morphological form. For example, we could still produce a grammatically well-formed sentence by filling in the blank with the irregularly pluralized nouns mice or theses. In other words, as long as the noun is plural, the syntax “doesn’t care” which particular form is chosen. It’s the job of the language-specific rules of morphology to determine how an abstract feature should be realized phonologically and to select the right form.
以下各节提供了世界各国语言中一些较常见的以屈折形态为标志的语法对比的迷你目录。
The following sections provide a mini-catalogue of some of the more common grammatical contrasts marked by inflectional morphology across the world’s languages.
人称是区分话语中所指实体的语法特征。第一人称指说话者(英语中为“我”),第二人称指收话人(你)。第三人称是默认类别,指代其他一切(例如, 她/她、他/他、它、狗、约翰、今天可能会下雨)。人称通常与数结合(参见下一节),因此我们经常说人称-数结合,例如“第三人称单数”(3sg.)或“第一人称复数”(1pl.)等。
Person is a grammatical feature that distinguishes entities referred to in an utterance. First person refers to the speaker (in English, I/me), and second person refers to the addressee (you). Third person is a default category that refers to everything else (for example, she/her, he/him, it, the dog, John, the fact that it might rain today). Person is often combined with number (see the next section) and thus we often speak of person–number combinations such as ‘third person singular’ (3sg.) or ‘first person plural’ (1pl.), etc.
当我们说到人称(和/或数)的屈折范畴,我们通常指的是语法一致关系,最常见的是主语-动词一致。区分语法人称的语言通常要求动词与主语的人称特征一致,有时也要求与宾语的人称特征一致(例如斯瓦希里语)。主谓一致有助于表明句子中的哪个名词在“做”哪个动词。这在词序自由的语言中尤其有用,在这些语言中,主语可以位于动词之前或之后。英语(具有相对固定的词序)的常规动词只有一个屈折一致标记(并且只用于现在时动词):3sg. - s,如he/she/it runs。下面是波兰语中动词 kocha ć‘爱’的现在时主谓人称/数一致的部分范例(相关形式的有序显示,例如这里的对比人称和数),而波兰语是一种具有更丰富的动词一致性对比的语言。
When we speak of the inflectional categories of person (and/or number), we’re usually referring to a grammatical agreement relation, most often subject–verb agreement. Languages which distinguish grammatical persons typically require that a verb agree with its subject’s person feature, and occasionally with that of its object as well (such as Swahili). Subject–verb agreement helps to indicate which noun in a sentence is “doing” which verb. This is particularly valuable in languages with free word order, in which subjects can come before or after their verbs. English (which has relatively fixed word order) has only one inflectional agreement marker for its regular verbs (and only on present-tense verbs): 3sg. -s, as in he/she/it runs. Below is a partial paradigm (an orderly display of related forms, for example, as here, contrasting persons and numbers) for present-tense, subject–verb person/number agreement in Polish, a language with much richer verbal agreement contrasts, for the verb kochać ‘to love.’
| (45) |
波兰语现在时 Polish present tense
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该表显示,波兰语使用者根据主语的人称/数特征使用不同的动词屈折形式。
This table shows that Polish speakers use a different inflectional form of the verb depending on the person/number features of the subject.
ASL 形态中的动词屈折很有趣,因为它显示了一些类型学上罕见的形态模式。动词有三类:“一致”动词(与主语或宾语一致)、“简单”动词(不显示任何一致性)和位置动词(与位置一致)。符号从为主语保留的位置开始,到为宾语保留的位置结束。说话者的身体表示第一人称,朝向听者的位置表示第二人称,第三人称则指向远离说话者和听者的某个指定空间。许多 ASL 研究人员认为这些位置是动词的屈折,并且明显的代词可以与这些屈折一起使用。有趣的是,可以使用几个不同的空间来指代不同的人。改变第三人称指称时不会产生歧义(考虑代词“他或她”在整个对话过程中如何改变指称)——改变第三人称指称时,只需在不同的空间开始或结束手势即可(Sandler 和 Lillo-Martin 2006)。
Verbal inflection in ASL morphology is interesting in that it displays some typologically rare patterns concerning morphology. There are three classes of verbs: “agreeing” verbs (which agree with the subject or object), “plain” verbs (which do not display any agreement), and locative verbs (which agree with the location). The sign begins in the location reserved for the subject and ends in the location reserved for the object. The speaker’s body indicates first person, a location toward the listener indicates second person, and the third person is referred to by pointing toward some designated space away from both speaker and listener. These locations are considered by many ASL researchers to be inflections on the verb, and an overt pronoun can be used along with these inflections. What is interesting is that several different spaces can be used for referring to different people. There is no ambiguity when changing third person referents (consider how the pronoun he or she can change referents throughout a conversation) – one simply begins or ends the sign in a different space when changing third-person referents (Sandler and Lillo-Martin 2006).
数是名词的语法属性(我们已经看到,数通常通过动词和其他元素(如限定词和形容词)的一致性来标记)。最基本的对比是单数(“一”)和复数(“多于一”)之间的对比,尽管许多语言也标记了不同的双数形式(“二”)。斯洛文尼亚语标记了这种三向数字对比,如(46)所示。(名词mest ‘城市’是主格,稍后将讨论。)
Number is a grammatical property of nouns (and as we’ve already seen, often marked via agreement on verbs and other elements such as determiners and adjectives). The most fundamental contrast is between singular (‘one’) and plural (‘more than one’), although many languages also mark a distinct dual form (‘two’). Slovenian marks this three-way number contrast, as shown in (46). (The noun mest ‘city’ is in nominative case, to be discussed shortly.)
| (46) |
斯洛文尼亚语 Slovenian
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即使在具有语法数区别的语言中,也有一些名词无法计数,因此无法复数。例如,在英语中,companionship、carelessness和peace等抽象名词没有复数形式。表示非个体材料的名词,如rice、lettuce或toilet paper,通常也不可复数(除非我们指的是“种类”的 rice、lettuce 或 toilet paper)。这种名词称为物质名词或不可数名词。在一种语言中是物质名词的名词在另一种语言中可能是可数名词。例如,在英语中,家具是物质名词(*furnitures),而在法语中,它是可数名词(meuble, meubles)。在这种情况下,英语必须使用一个额外的词来区分物质的各个部分,例如一件家具、一粒米、一棵生菜或一卷卫生纸。
Even in languages that have grammatical number distinctions there are some nouns that cannot be counted and therefore cannot be pluralized. For example, in English, abstract nouns such as companionship, carelessness, and peace have no plural form. Nouns that denote non-individuated material like rice, lettuce, or toilet paper are also typically not pluralizable (unless we mean something like ‘kinds of’ rice, lettuce, or toilet paper). This type of noun is called a mass or noncount noun. A noun that is a mass noun in one language may be countable in another. In English, for example, furniture is a mass noun (*furnitures), whereas in French, it is countable (meuble, meubles). In this situation, English must resort to using an additional word that can individuate parts of the mass, such as a piece of furniture, a grain of rice, a head of lettuce, or a roll of toilet paper.
在一些似乎缺乏常规语法数区分的语言中,比如中文,大多数名词都是以这种方式个体化的。因此,中文有一个高度发达的分类词,一种语法词素,量词(如“一”、“一些”、“许多”、“三”等)或指示词(‘这个’和‘那个’)的词缀:
In some languages which appear to lack regular grammatical number distinctions, such as Chinese, most nouns are individuated in this way. Consequently, Chinese has a highly developed system of classifiers, a kind of grammatical morpheme that affixes to quantifiers (like ‘one,’ ‘some,’ ‘many,’ ‘three,’ etc.) or demonstratives (‘this’ and ‘that’):
| (47) |
普通话 Mandarin Chinese
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汉语中有几十个分类词。分类词的选择取决于特定名词,通常只需记住即可。存在一些模式,例如使用分类词“ tiáo”表示细长物体,例如“蛇”、“绳”、“河”、“尾巴”,也用于大多数四足哺乳动物;但是,也有几个例外。然而,对于当今许多以汉语为母语的人来说,最常用的分类词“个”已经开始具有更通用的通用字符,并逐渐取代许多更专业的字符(Li and Thompson,1981:112)。
There are dozens of classifiers in Mandarin Chinese. The choice of classifier depends on the particular noun and often must simply be memorized. Some patterns exist, such as the use of the classifier -tiáo for elongated objects, such as ‘snake,’ ‘rope,’ ‘river,’ ‘tail,’ and also for most four-legged mammals; however, there are several exceptions. For many native Chinese speakers today, however, the most frequently used classifier -ge has begun to take on a more general all-purpose character and is gradually replacing many of the more specialized ones (Li and Thompson, 1981: 112).
在许多语言中,名词被分为不同的类别,其他词语 – 例如形容词、限定词、代词或动词(或这些的某种组合) – 必须与之一致。这些名词类别通常被称为性别,从词源上讲,源自拉丁语genus和法语types,意为“种类”或“类别”。性别一致性有助于表明哪些形容词、限定词等与特定名词相关。在标记语法性别的语言中,每个名词都被分配到一个类别。您可能熟悉“阳性”和“阴性”等术语,它们在某些具有双向区分的语言(如法语和西班牙语)中描述这些类别,或“阳性”、“阴性”和“中性”等术语,它们用于描述在某些具有三向区分的语言(如德语和俄语)中的类别。
In many languages, nouns are sorted into different classes that other words – such as adjectives, determiners, pronouns, or verbs (or some combination of these) – must agree with. These noun classes are often referred to as gender, etymologically descended from Latin genus and French genre, meaning ‘kind’ or ‘sort.’ Gender agreement helps to indicate which adjectives, determiners, etc. are associated with a particular noun. In languages that mark grammatical gender, every noun is assigned to a class. You might be familiar with terms like “masculine” and “feminine” to describe these classes in some languages with a two-way distinction (like French and Spanish), or “masculine,” “feminine,” and “neuter” for some with a three-way distinction (like German and Russian).
有时名词本身会标明性别。在(48)中的西班牙语例子中,阳性名词amigo (‘朋友,男性’) 以 -o 结尾,而阴性名词amiga (‘朋友,女性’) 以 -a 结尾。请注意,不定冠词un/una和形容词americano/a的形式与名词的性别一致:
Sometimes gender is indicated on the noun itself. In the Spanish examples in (48), the masculine noun amigo (‘friend, masc.’) ends in -o whereas its feminine counterpart amiga (‘friend, fem.’) ends in -a. Observe that the forms of the indefinite article un/una and the adjective americano/a agree with the gender of the noun:
| (48) |
西班牙语 Spanish
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但是,西班牙语中许多名词的标记并不那么明显。必须学习 以辅音或除-o和 -a之外的元音结尾的西班牙语名词的性别:
However, many nouns in Spanish are not so obviously marked. The gender of Spanish nouns that end either in consonants or vowels other than -o and -a must be learned:
| (49) |
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更糟糕的是,有些以-a结尾的“误导性”名词是阳性,有些以-o结尾的却是阴性:
Even worse, there are “misleading” nouns ending in -a that are masculine and some ending in -o that are feminine:
| (50) |
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判断名词性别的方法是观察与之一致的限定词、形容词等的类型。名词的性别最终通过一致性来确认。
The way to determine a noun’s gender is by observing the type of determiners, adjectives, etc. that agree with it. The gender of a noun is conclusively confirmed by agreement.
标记性别的语言在必须与名词一致的词类型方面有所不同。在上面的西班牙语示例中,冠词(例如un/una和el/la)和形容词(例如americano/a)是一致的。在以下德语例子中,只有冠词一致;形容词Junge的形式没有改变:
Languages which mark gender differ in terms of the types of words that must agree with the noun. In the Spanish examples above, the articles (such as un/una and el/la) and adjectives (such as americano/a) agree. In the following German examples, only the articles agree; the adjective junge does not change its form:
| (51) |
德语 German
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在下面的斯瓦希里语句子中,主语名词ki-kapu “篮子”属于斯瓦希里语名词类 7,需要形容词(ki-kubwa “大”)、量词(ki-moja “一”)和动词(ki-lianguka “掉落”)一致 - 所有这些都由“名词类 7”表示前缀ki-:
In the Swahili sentence below, the subject noun ki-kapu ‘basket,’ which belongs to Swahili noun class 7, requires agreement on the adjective (ki-kubwa ‘large’), quantifier (ki-moja ‘one’), and verb (ki-lianguka ‘fell’) – all indicated by the ‘noun class 7’ prefix ki-:
| (52) |
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也许你会对一种语言有“名词类别 7”感到惊讶。斯瓦希里语(也称为 Kiswahili)属于班图语系,该语系遍布非洲南部的大部分地区。与大多数班图语一样,它有非常复杂的性别系统。班图语中有 10 到 20 个名词类别(而大多数印欧语系只有 2 到 4 个名词类别),斯瓦希里语有大约 15 个(取决于如何分析这些)。在世界语言中,将名词分配到性别类别的基础通常很复杂,并且正如您从上面的例子中所看到的,远远超出了基于语义的“男性”或“女性”概念(见 框 2.7)。
Perhaps you’re surprised at a language having a “noun class 7.” Swahili (also called Kiswahili) belongs to the family of Bantu languages spoken throughout much of the southern half of Africa. Like most Bantu languages, it has a very elaborate gender system. There are between ten and twenty noun classes in Bantu languages (compared with the two to four found in most Indo-European languages), and Swahili has about fifteen (depending on how these are analyzed). Among the world’s languages, the basis for assigning nouns to gender classes is often complex and, as you can see from the examples above, goes well beyond semantic-based concepts of “masculine” or “feminine” (see Box 2.7).
尽管许多语言中的性别至少部分与基于性别的区别相关,但您可以从文中的例子看出,形态性别在大多数情况下也是独立于语义“男性”或“女性”而分配的。(对于语言学家来说,性别这个词的意思是“种类”而不是“性别”。)那么如何将名词分配到特定的类别呢?主要有两种方式——要么基于其含义,要么基于其形式。大多数系统都是混合的;也就是说,一些名词是根据含义分配的,而另一些则根据其形式分配。
Although gender in many languages at least partially correlates with sex-based distinctions, you can see from the examples in the text that morphological gender is also assigned in most cases independently of semantic “maleness” or “femaleness.” (For linguists the word gender means ‘kind’ rather than ‘sex.’) So how is a noun assigned to a particular class? There are two main ways – either on the basis of its meaning or its form. Most systems are mixed; that is, some nouns are assigned on the basis of meaning and others according to their form.
在例如,在法语中,表示男性指称的名词是阳性,而表示女性的名词是阴性——这是基于意义的性别类别分配的区别。那么其他所有名词——绝大多数——呢?两项研究(Mel' č uk 1958;Tucker、Lambert 和 Rigault 1977)发现,在法语派生形态学和音系学中,非语义名词的性别预测出奇的准确。例如,在法语中,从动词短语派生的名词复合词是阳性,即使复合词中的最后一个(宾语)名词是阴性,如porte-monnaie = carry-money(阴性)= 'purse'(阳性)。同样,以 - tion /sj ɔ̃ / 结尾的名词中有 99.8% 是阴性(例如action /aksj ɔ̃ / 'action'); 97.2% 以 /o/ 结尾的名词是阳性(例如mot /mo/“单词”),94.2% 以 / ӡ / 结尾的名词也是阳性(例如potage /p ɔ ta ӡ /“汤”),等等。学习法语的儿童能够记住这些规律,并且可能以与学习英语的儿童学习不规则动词的过去时形式非常相似的方式学习例外。事实上,法语的性别分配系统严重依赖于语音学,以至于学习法语的聋哑儿童无法掌握法语,因为他们听不到这种语言(Tucker等人1977 : 59,引自 Corbett 1991:61)。
In French, for example, nouns denoting male referents are masculine and those denoting females are feminine – a meaning-based distinction for gender class assignment. What about all the other nouns – the overwhelming majority? Two studies (Mel’čuk 1958; Tucker, Lambert, and Rigault 1977) found surprisingly accurate predictors of the gender of non-semantic-based nouns in French derivational morphology and phonology. For example, noun compounds derived from verb phrases in French are masculine, even if the final (object) noun in the compound is feminine, as in porte-monnaie = carries-money (fem.) = ‘purse’ (masc.). Similarly, 99.8% of nouns ending in -tion /sjɔ̃/ are feminine (e.g. action /aksjɔ̃/ ‘action’); 97.2% of nouns ending in /o/ are masculine (e.g. mot /mo/ ‘word’), as are 94.2% of nouns ending in /ӡ/ (e.g. potage /pɔtaӡ/ ‘soup’), and so on. Children acquiring French are able to keep track of these regularities, and probably learn the exceptions in much the same way that children acquiring English learn the past-tense forms of irregular verbs. In fact, the French gender-assignment system is so heavily phonology-based that deaf children who learn to speak French do not acquire it, because they cannot hear the language (Tucker et al. 1977: 59, cited in Corbett 1991: 61).
在名词类别系统高度复杂的语言中,如斯瓦希里语,性别系统也是混合的,名词根据其含义或形式被分配到特定的类别。这些语言中用于对名词进行分类的一些语义特征是人性、性别、生命性(某些植物和动物有区别)、身体部位、大小和形状,尽管许多类别也有例外。其他类别的成员资格由音系或形态决定。例如,在班图语中,另一个给定类别的名词的复数指称有不同的类别。回想一下上面(52)中的斯瓦希里语例子,意思是“一个大篮子掉了下来”。如果我们将“一”改为复数,例如“三”,那么ki-kapu “篮子”的名词类别就会从“第 7 类”变为“第 8 类” vi-kapu “篮子”,其他句子元素上的所有一致标记也会从ki-变为vi-:
In languages with highly complex noun class systems, such as Swahili, the gender system is also mixed, with nouns assigned to particular classes either on the basis of their meaning or their form. Some of the semantic features used to classify nouns in these languages are humanness, sex, animacy (with distinctions for some kinds of plants and animals), body parts, size, and shape, although there are exceptions in many classes. Membership in other classes is phonologically or morphologically determined. In Bantu languages, for instance, there are distinct classes for the plural referents of nouns of another given class. Recall the Swahili example above in (52) meaning ‘one large basket fell.’ If we were to change ‘one’ to a plural number, e.g. ‘three,’ the noun class of ki-kapu ‘basket’ would change from ‘class 7’ to ‘class 8’ vi-kapu ‘baskets,’ and all the agreement markers on the other sentential elements would change as well from ki- to vi-:
因此,斯瓦希里语中第 8 类性别的“含义”是“第 7 类名词的复数”。
Thus, the “meaning” of gender class 8 in Swahili is ‘plural of class 7 nouns.’
如果一种语言(或者更准确地说,说话者)无法决定使用哪个类别,该怎么办?正如我们之前在中文分类器系统中观察到的那样,具有复杂名词类别系统的语言可能经常将一个类别指定为一种通用的默认性别。这种性别通常被儿童,尤其是第二语言学习者过度概括;它逐渐吸收较小、较模糊类别的名词,也可能成为进入语言的新名词的主要类别。
What if a language (or more precisely, a speaker) can’t decide which class to use? As we observed earlier with the Chinese classifier system, languages with complex noun class systems may often designate one class as a kind of general all-purpose default gender. This gender is typically overgeneralized by children and especially second-language learners; it gradually absorbs the nouns of smaller, more obscure classes, and may also serve as the primary class for new nouns that enter a language.
我们之前观察到,形态学最重要的功能之一是区分事件中不同参与者所扮演的角色。格是一种语法类别,它通过指示特定名词与从句或短语中其他元素的关系来实现这一点。通常,格标记表示名词与动词(作为其主语、直接宾语或间接宾语)或与另一个名词(如所有格或位置关系)的关系。在我们了解这些关系在不同语言中的形态标记方式之前,让我们简要考虑一下(53)中的英语句子中所示的这些关系。
We observed earlier that one of the most important functions of morphology is to distinguish the roles played by the various participants in an event. Case is a grammatical category that does this, by indicating a particular noun’s relation to some other element in a clause or phrase. Typically, case marking indicates the relation of the noun to the verb (as its subject, direct object, or indirect object) or to another noun (as in a possessive or locational relation). Before we see how these relations are morphologically marked in different languages, let’s briefly consider these relations as illustrated in the English sentence in (53).
| (53) |
约翰把他姐姐的旧自行车送给了玛丽。 John gave Mary his sister’s old bicycle. |
在这个句子中,动词gave与三个名词相关,即赠予者 ( John )、礼物 ( bike ) 和接受者 ( Mary )。赠予者John是gave的主语,礼物bike是直接宾语,接受者Mary是间接宾语。此外,还有两种所有格关系——一种是约翰和他的妹妹(用所有格代词his标记),另一种是他妹妹和自行车(用sister上的所有格词缀 - s标记)。在标记格区别的语言中,许多这些关系将通过屈折形态来表示。考虑一下例如斯洛文尼亚语。(在(54)中,格形式标记如下:主语表示主语,宾格用于直接宾语,与格用于间接宾语。)
In this sentence, the verb gave is related to three nouns, the giver (John), the gift (bicycle), and the recipient (Mary). The giver John is the subject of gave, the gift bicycle is the direct object, and the recipient Mary is the indirect object. In addition, there are two possessive relations – one between John and his sister (marked with the possessive pronoun his), and another between his sister and the bicycle (marked with the possessive affix -s on sister). In languages that mark case distinctions, many of these relations would be indicated by inflectional morphology. Consider the same sentence in Slovenian, for example. (In (54), case forms are labeled as follows: nominative for subjects, accusative for direct objects, and dative for indirect objects.)
| (54) |
斯洛文尼亚语(Dominik Rus,个人计算机) Slovenian (Dominik Rus, p.c.)
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在斯洛文尼亚语中,主格不加标记;名词的基本形式不加词缀。其他格有标记:与格用后缀 - i标记,宾格用 - o标记。请注意,形容词如staro '老' 和sestrino '姐妹'(在斯洛文尼亚语中被视为所有格形容词)在格标记上也与它们修饰的名词一致。
In Slovenian, nominative case is unmarked; the base form of the noun receives no affix. Other cases are marked: dative by the suffix -i and accusative by -o. Notice that adjectives such as staro ‘old’ and sestrino ‘sister’s’ (which is considered a possessive adjective in Slovenian) also agree in case marking with the noun they are modifying.
除了表示主语、宾语和所有格等语法角色外,许多具有广泛格标记系统的语言还使用屈折形态来标记英语使用介词表示的位置关系(如 to、from 、 at等)。这些位置后缀称为方位格变格。以下是列兹金语(一种俄罗斯南部使用的高加索土著语言)中此类方位格后缀的一些示例:
In addition to indicating grammatical roles such as subject, object, and possession, many languages with extensive case-marking systems also use inflectional morphology to mark the kinds of locational relations for which English uses prepositions (like to, from, at, etc.). These locational suffixes are called locative case inflections. Here are some examples of this type of case suffixing in Lezghian, an indigenous language of the Caucasus spoken in southern Russia:
| (55) |
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列兹金语的方位格词缀提供了另一种例证,说明一种语言使用粘着词素来执行另一种语言中自由词素(例如介词)所执行的相同功能。
The locative case affixes of Lezghian provide another illustration of one language using bound morphemes to perform the same function that free morphemes (e.g. prepositions) perform in another.
所有动物的交流系统都能传达有关当前或即将发生情况的信息,例如警告信号或交配叫声。人类是个例外,我们可以谈论过去发生的事件(无论时间有多久),也可以推测未来可能发生或可能不会发生的情况。所有人类语言都有在时间上定位情形的方法,例如,通过使用诸如昨天、后天、日落时或雨季 之类的词汇表达。此外,许多语言还使用一种称为时态的形态类别来定位与某一时间点相关的事件或状态。在简单时态中,例如过去、现在和将来,该参考点是说话时的“现在”。 例如,过去时表示事件发生在说话之前,如下所示的英语和日语:
All animal communication systems can convey information about a current or imminent situation – a warning signal, for example, or a mating call. Humans are exceptional in that we can talk about events that occurred in the past, no matter how distant, or speculate about situations that may or may not happen far into the future. All human languages have ways for locating situations in time – for example, through the use of lexical expressions like yesterday, the day after tomorrow, when the sun sets, or in the rainy season. In addition, many languages also use a morphological category called tense to locate an event or state in relation to a point in time. In simple tenses, such as past, present, and future, that reference point is “now,” at the moment of speaking. The past tense, for example, indicates that an event took place prior to the moment of speaking, as shown below for English and Japanese:
| (56) |
昨晚我去了卡拉 OK 酒吧。 Last night I went to a karaoke bar. |
| (57) |
日本人 Japanese
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这里使用的过去时表明我去卡拉 OK 酒吧的事件发生在我讲述这件事之前的某个时间;副词短语“昨晚”更准确地指定了那个时间。
The use of the past tense here indicates that the event of my going to a karaoke bar happened sometime prior to the moment of my telling about it; that time is more precisely specified by the adverbial phrase last night.
过去时表示事件发生在说话之前,而将来时表示事件发生在说话之后。请注意,虽然我们经常在英语中说“将来时”,但它不是通过词形变化来标记的;而是使用各种辅助形式或一般现在时形式:
Whereas past tense marks an event as occurring prior to the moment of speech, the future tense situates an event sometime after the moment of speech. Note that while we often speak of a ‘future tense’ in English, it is not morphologically marked via inflection; rather we use various auxiliary forms or the simple present form:
| (58) |
他下周就要离开了。 He’s leaving next week. 他下周就要离开了。 He’s going to leave next week. 他将于下周离开。 He will leave next week. 他下周离开。 He leaves next week. |
因此,英语在形态上仅区分两种时态:过去时和非过去时。其他语言,例如意大利语,确实有形态将来时:
For this reason, English is claimed to morphologically distinguish only two tenses: past and nonpast. Other languages, such as Italian, do have morphological future tense:
| (59) |
意大利语 Italian
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并非所有语言都以形态学方式标记时态。据称 Dyirbal 语(一种澳大利亚语言)和缅甸语缺乏时态(Comrie 1985)。中文也是一样,如下图:
Not all languages morphologically mark tense. Dyirbal (an Australian language) and Burmese are claimed to lack tense (Comrie 1985). So is Chinese, as shown below:
| (60) |
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在(60)中,动词“梦见”上(或句子中的其他地方)没有过去时标记。事件的过去时间在词汇上仅由“昨天”这个表达来表示。虽然所有语言都能够用词汇来表达语义时间指称,但这不应与时态的形式语法类别相混淆。
In (60), there is no past-tense marker on the verb mèngjiàn ‘dream’ (or anywhere else in the sentence). The past time of the event is simply lexically indicated by the expression zuótiān ‘yesterday.’ Although all languages are able to express semantic time reference lexically, this should not be confused with the formal grammatical category of tense.
时态与相对于说话时刻的时间定位(整个)事件有关,而体态是一种语法类别,它编码了不同类型的时间特征,例如动作是否已完成、正在进行、重复(迭代)或习惯性。例如,在英语中,人们可以说:
Whereas tense is concerned with locating an (entire) event in time relative to the moment of speaking, aspect is a grammatical category that encodes a different kind of temporal characteristic, such as whether an action is (or was) completed, ongoing, repeated (iterative), or habitual. For example, in English one can say:
| (61) |
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(61a)和(61b)之间的区别在于时态(即现在时与过去时),而(61b)和(61c)之间的区别在于体貌区别。(61b)和(61c)都是过去时;但是, (61b)中的形式was painting(在英语中通常称为进行时形式)表示绘画动作正在进行,而且约翰很可能从未完成粉刷厨房。(想象一下,如果约翰刚开始粉刷就被打断了。)但是, (61c)中的例子表明约翰确实完成了粉刷 — — 也就是说,厨房的粉刷已经完成。这种体貌区别存在于许多语言中;语言学家有时将“正在进行”的含义称为未完成时,而将“完成”的含义称为完成时。下面是法语和西班牙语中不完美体用法的一个例子:
The difference between (61a) and (61b) is a tense distinction (i.e. present vs. past), whereas the difference between (61b) and (61c) is an aspectual distinction. Both (61b) and (61c) are in the past tense; however, the form was painting in (61b), often called the progressive form in English, indicates that the action of painting was ongoing and it’s quite possible that John never completed painting the kitchen. (Imagine if John was interrupted after he’d just begun painting.) The example in (61c), however, indicates that John did finish painting – that is, the painting of the kitchen was completed. This aspectual distinction is found in many languages; the “ongoing” meaning is sometimes referred to by linguists as the imperfective and the “completed” meaning is called the perfective. An example of how imperfective aspect is used in French and Spanish is shown below:
| (62) |
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动词形式lisait和leía(分别为法语和西班牙语)表示约翰正在阅读,这时我的进入打断了他,我们不能假设他已经读完了。
The verb forms lisait and leía (French and Spanish, respectively) indicate that John was in the process of reading when he was interrupted by my entering, and we cannot assume that he finished whatever he was reading.
下面的例子取自中文,阐明了完成体:
The following example from Chinese illustrates perfective aspect:
| (63) |
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在(63)中,动词“吃”带有完成体标记“了”,表示去这个动作发生在吃完之后。(请注意,在英语中,我们也可以使用大致等效的形态结构——现在完成体形式来翻译这个句子:“我吃完饭后就会去。”)
In (63), the verb chī ‘eat’ bears the perfective marker -le, indicating that the action of going will occur after eating has been completed. (Note that in English we could also translate this sentence using a roughly equivalent morphological construction – the present perfect form: ‘I’ll go after I’ve eaten.’)
体态应该与时态区分开来;例如,在(63)的中文句子中,吃饭的动作被标记为“完成”,但不是过去时。然而,在实践中,这两个类别往往是高度互动的再考虑一下英语句子(61c) :约翰粉刷了厨房。对于诸如粉刷厨房这样的事件,我们的英语“过去时”形式也编码了完成体。换句话说,整个粉刷事件发生在说话时刻之前(过去时),并且粉刷厨房已经完成(完成体)。同样,非过去时(现在时)(例如,句子约翰正在粉刷厨房中的正在粉刷)表示事件发生在说话时刻(时态),也表示动作仍在进行中(未完成体)。
Aspect should be distinguished from tense; in the Chinese sentence in (63), for example, the act of eating is marked as “complete” and yet is not in the past. In practice, however, these two categories are often highly interactive. Consider again sentence (61c) in English: John painted the kitchen. For events such as kitchen-painting, our English “past-tense” form also encodes perfective aspect. In other words, the entire painting event is situated prior to the moment of speaking (past tense), and the painting of the kitchen was completed (perfective aspect). Similarly, the nonpast (present) tense (for example, is painting in the sentence John is painting the kitchen) indicates that the event is situated in time at the moment of speaking (tense), and also indicates that the action is still ongoing (imperfective aspect).
语气是一种表达情态的语法类别——与可能并非实际存在的可能性有关的意义方面,通常反映说话者对话语内容的信念、观点或态度。尽管语气通常以形态标记在动词上,但它实际上适用于整个从句,以表明说话者认为某个命题是真的、可能的、可疑的,还是他/她想知道的、希望的或期望的。语气也可以通过自由词素来表达,例如情态助动词——can、must或should 等。不同语言中一些常见的语气区别是指示性的,用于做出陈述性断言,疑问句,用于提问,以及命令式,用于发出命令。我们还发现一些语言使用一种特殊的语气形式,称为虚拟式用来表达愿望、希望或怀疑,条件表达某人将会做什么或应该做什么。下面给出了意大利语动词venire ‘来’ 的陈述语气(64a)、虚拟语气(64b)、祈使语气(64c)和条件语气(64d)的例子:
Mood is a grammatical category that expresses modality – aspects of meaning having to do with possibilities that may not be actual, and that often reflect a speaker’s belief, opinion, or attitude about the content of an utterance. Although often morphologically marked on verbs, mood really applies to entire clauses, to indicate whether the speaker thinks a proposition is true, or likely, or doubtful, or is something he/she wonders about, or hopes or wishes for. Mood may also be expressed by free morphemes, such as modal auxiliaries – words like can, must, or should in English, for example. Some common mood distinctions across languages are the indicative, used for making declarative assertions, the interrogative, used for asking questions, and the imperative, used for giving commands. We also find languages which use a special mood form known as the subjunctive to express desire, hope, or doubt, and the conditional to express what one would or should do. Examples illustrating indicative (64a), subjunctive (64b), imperative (64c), and conditional (64d) moods of the Italian verb venire ‘to come’ are given below:
| (64) |
意大利语 Italian
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其他语言中经常以屈折形式表达的有趣情态功能是证据性,说话者根据现有的证据类型,对某个命题表明一定程度的确定性或怀疑性。想一想,人类能够评估信息源的可靠性是多么重要——我们的生存确实取决于它。例如,我们更可能相信我们亲眼目睹的事情,而不是从别人的二手报道中听到的事情。在英语中,我们通过词汇手段来表达我们对断言真实性的信心程度,比如短语“我知道……”、“我听说……”、“我怀疑……”,或者使用副词,如“显然”。然而,其他语言直接将这些含义变位在动词上。在以克丘亚语为例,存在三种证据区分,如下所示:
Another interesting modal function often expressed inflectionally in languages is evidentiality, in which the speaker indicates a degree of certainty or doubt about a proposition based on the kind of evidence available for it. Think for a moment about how important it is for humans to be able to evaluate the reliability of an information-source – our survival literally depends on it. For example, we’re likely to believe what we’ve witnessed firsthand with our own eyes more than what we’ve heard from secondhand reports by others. In English, we convey our degree of confidence in the truth of an assertion by lexical means, as in phrases like I know … or I heard … or I doubt … or by the use of adverbs such as apparently. However, other languages directly inflect these meanings on the verb. In Quechua, for example, there is a three-way evidentiality distinction, as shown below:
| (65) |
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在(65a)中,动词词缀 - mi表示第一手知识(肯定),在(65b)中,词缀 - shi传达基于传闻(报告)的信息,而在(65c)中,词缀 - tr表示怀疑(可疑)。在克丘亚语中,这些标记也用于将焦点放在它们所附加的单词上。
In (65a) the verbal affix -mi indicates firsthand knowledge (affirmative), in (65b) the affix -shi relays information based on hearsay (reported), and in (65c) the affix -tr expresses doubt (dubitative). In Quechua these markers also serve to place focus on the word they are affixed to.
语法语气还可以表达对结果出乎意料的惊奇、惊讶或失望。以下示例说明了阿尔冈昆美洲原住民语言梅诺米尼语中动词的“五种模式”:
Grammatical mood may also express wonder, surprise, or disappointment with a result that is contrary to expectation. The following examples illustrate the “five modes” for verbs in Menomini, an Algonquian Native American language:
| (66) |
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语气这一语义多样而复杂的类别通过传达说话者对句子内容的看法、态度或情感,影响句子的含义。所有语言都有表达语气差异的方式,许多语言都是通过形态来表达的。
The semantically varied and complex category of mood shades the meaning of a sentence, by conveying some opinion, attitude, or emotion about its content as perceived by the speaker. All languages have a way to express mood distinctions, and many do so morphologically.
如果你正式学习过一门具有丰富主谓结构如果你已经记住了西班牙语、阿拉伯语、斯瓦希里语或德语等语言中单词的排列顺序或语法上的性别差异,那么你可能已经记住了排列整齐的动词形式表或词汇表,其中提供了名词性别的信息。但是如果你是一个自然学习斯瓦希里语或西班牙语的孩子,情况会怎样?重要的是要记住,在孩子的自然习得环境中,单词不会带有诸如“ coche(阳性)”或“ noche(阴性)”之类的信息。语言课堂上的学生通过记忆列表和范例来学习的东西,对于识字前的孩子来说,必须通过潜意识地注意单词的对比分布和共现来获得。他们在听到的语言中能够辨别 形态音位上的区别。在形态复杂的语言中,这是一项了不起的成就。
If you have formally studied a language that has rich subject–verb agreement or grammatical gender distinctions, such as Spanish, Arabic, Swahili, or German, then you’ve probably memorized tables of neatly arranged verb forms or lists of vocabulary words in which information about the gender of nouns was provided. But what if you were a child acquiring Swahili or Spanish naturally? It’s important to remember that in a child’s natural acquisition environment, words do not come annotated with information such as “coche (masc.)” or “noche (fem.).” What the student in a language classroom learns via the memorizing of lists and paradigms, the preliterate child must acquire from subconscious attention to the contrasting distribution and co-occurrences of morphophonological distinctions in the language they hear. In languages with complex morphology, this is a remarkable feat.
考虑一下形态学示例或问题集(包括本章中的信息)中人为压缩的所有内容,例如英语注释和翻译。学习语言的儿童得不到这种帮助。相反,他们在语言的海洋中畅游,必须在上下文中推断出话语的含义以及格、数、人称、性别、词形变化类别等区别,并与已经掌握的最小对比形式进行比较。正是这些最小对比的逐渐积累,导致儿童形成并不断完善语法类别。
Consider all the information that is artificially condensed in a morphology example or problem set (including the ones in this chapter), such as English glosses and translations. Children acquiring a language don’t get this kind of help. Instead, they swim in a linguistic sea where the meaning of an utterance and distinctions such as case, number, person, gender, conjugation class, and so on, must be deduced in context and compared with minimally contrasting forms that have already been acquired. It is the gradual accumulation of such minimal contrasts that leads to the child’s formulation and increasing refinement of grammatical categories.
在语言学教科书中,数据经过精心挑选和呈现,无数小时的语言学习所积累的知识实际上“在翻译中丢失了”。因此,我们鼓励您考虑有一天自己进行一些真正的实地工作;您已经这样做了——从小就这样做了!
The aggregate knowledge accumulated over countless hours of exposure to a language in context is quite literally “lost in translation” in the way data are carefully handpicked and presented in linguistics textbooks. For that reason, we encourage you to consider someday undertaking some real field work of your own; you’ve done it already – as a child!
如果您在外语课堂上学习过法语,您可能已经了解到形容词必须与它们所修饰的名词在性别和数上保持一致。让我们暂时关注一下性别一致性。您可能会得到一份形容词列表和以下规则:“要形成形容词的阴性形式,请在阳性形式中添加e ”(例如 Barson 1981:101)。(在某些情况下,可能还会有一些其他细微的拼写变化。)下面的列表非常典型(数据来自 Bauer 2003:38–39):
If you’ve studied French in a foreign-language classroom setting, you probably learned that adjectives must agree with the nouns they modify in gender and number. Let’s focus for a moment on gender agreement. It’s likely that you were provided with a list of adjectives and the following rule: “To form the feminine of an adjective, add e to the masculine form” (e.g. Barson 1981: 101). (In some cases there might be some other minor spelling change as well.) The list below is quite typical (data from Bauer 2003: 38–39):
请注意,此规则完全基于书面正字法;它表明最后的阴性e是屈折词缀。这种“看待它”的方式可能会帮助第二语言学习者(他们已经知道如何阅读)来学习模式。然而,形态学不是基于正字法,而是基于词素,即声音序列。
Note that this rule is completely based on written orthography; it suggests that final feminine e is an inflectional affix. This way of “looking at it” might help a second language learner (who already knows how to read) to learn the pattern. However, morphology is not based on orthography, but on morphemes which are sequences of sounds.
现在想象一下一个还没有学会阅读或拼写的小孩学习法语。但学龄前儿童已经知道并正确使用上面列出的形容词的阳性和阴性形式。那么,学龄前儿童遵循什么“规则”来学习它们呢?让我们看看上面这些单词是如何发音的——这是孩子唯一能获得的证据。
Now imagine a young child acquiring French who hasn’t yet learned to read or spell. But children of preschool age already know and use correctly both the masculine and feminine forms of the adjectives listed above. So what “rule” does the preliterate child follow to acquire them? Let’s look at how the words above are pronounced – the only kind of evidence available to the child.
学龄前儿童无法使用添加字母(e)的拼写规则。请注意,与阳性形式相比,阴性形式在单词末尾添加了一个辅音。但是,正如 Bauer( 2003)指出的那样,无法从阳性形式预测阴性形式会添加哪个辅音。这取决于每个单词。儿童根据音系数据可以建立的唯一规则是,可以通过从阴性形容词中删除最后一个辅音来预测阳性形容词。这与法语教科书中介绍的基于拼写的正字法规则的推导顺序相反,并说明了母语语言习得者和接受课堂指导的语言习得者对形态规则的心理表征有多么不同!
The preliterate child cannot make use of a spelling rule that adds a letter (e). Note that the feminine form has an added consonant sound at the end of the word compared with its masculine counterpart. However, as Bauer (2003) points out, there is no way to predict from the masculine form which added consonant the feminine form will take. This is determined by each word. The only rule the child can establish on the basis of the phonological data is that the masculine adjective can be predictably derived by deleting the final consonant sound from the feminine adjective. This is the opposite order of derivation from the spelling-based orthographic rule presented in French language textbooks, and illustrates how different the mental representations of morphological rules can be between native vs. classroom-instructed language acquirers!
了解一门语言的一个关键部分是能够构造和解释该语言的词汇。语言学的一个分支学科称为形态学,它研究词汇内和词汇之间形式与意义的关系。语言的基本单位是词素,它结合了形式和意义。简单词只由一个词素组成,而复杂词则由一个以上的词素组成,也可能由多个词素组成。词素有不同的种类。那些具有更丰富的词汇意义并属于名词 (N)、动词 (V) 和形容词 (A) 主要词汇类别的词素称为词素,并且可以作为其他形态操作的词根。那些主要用于表示语法功能的词素称为语法词素。词素的实际语音形式可以根据某些条件因素系统地变化;这些变体形式称为变体。
A key part of knowing a language is the ability to construct and interpret the words of that language. The branch of linguistics that is concerned with the relation between form and meaning within words and between words is called morphology. The basic unit of language that combines both a form and a meaning is the morpheme. Simple words consist of just one morpheme, whereas complex words consist of more than one morpheme and may consist of many. There are different kinds of morphemes. Those bearing richer lexical meaning and belonging to the major lexical categories of nouns (N), verbs (V), and adjectives (A) are called lexemes, and may serve as the root for additional morphological operations. Those serving primarily to signal a grammatical function are called grammatical morphemes. The actual phonetic forms of morphemes can vary systematically depending on certain conditioning factors; these variant forms are known as allomorphs.
语言使用各种形态操作来修改词素的形式和含义。最常见的过程是词缀,即将一个形态素添加到词根(词根或另一个词缀)上。其他过程包括重复(复制词根的全部或部分)、内部词根变化,例如元音变换和补全(涉及替换词根的全部或部分音节)、超音段变化(其中单词重音或声调的变化用于表示形态对比)和复合(其中两个词素组合成一个新的词素)。这些形态操作用于两个主要功能:派生和词形变化。
Languages make use of various morphological operations to modify the form and meaning of lexemes. The most common process is affixation, in which a morpheme is added to a base (either a root or another affix). Other processes include reduplication (the copying of all or part of a root), internal root changes such as ablaut and suppletion (involving the replacement of all or some part of a root’s segments), suprasegmental change (in which a shift in word stress or tone is used to signal a morphological contrast), and compounding (in which two lexemes are combined to form a new lexeme). These morphological operations are used in the service of two major functions: derivation and inflection.
派生形态学从现有词素中创建新词素,同时改变词的词汇类别或含义,或两者兼而有之。屈折形态学增加了语法信息与词素相对应,这是每种语言的特定语法规则所要求的。世界上各种语言中常见的屈折对比有人称、数、性别、格、时态、体和语气。
Derivational morphology creates new lexemes from existing ones, with a change in the word’s lexical category or meaning, or both. Inflectional morphology adds grammatical information to a lexeme, as required by the particular grammatical rules of each language. Some common inflectional contrasts found among the world’s languages are person, number, gender, case, tense, aspect, and mood.
最后,我们简要讨论了儿童如何掌握这些语法对比。儿童似乎能够跟踪输入中的分布规律——例如,性别差异与词根的音位规律之间的相关性。格和时态标记等语法形式的含义必须从信息丰富且对比最少的语言环境中使用这些形式推断出来。
Finally, we briefly considered how children manage to acquire some of these grammatical contrasts. Children appear to be able to keep track of distributional regularities found in the input – for example, correlations between gender distinctions and the phonological regularities of roots. The meanings of grammatical forms such as case and tense marking must be deduced from the use of these forms in informative and minimally contrastive language contexts.
印尼语。考虑以下印尼语互惠形式(来自 Sneddon 1996:104):
Indonesian. Consider the Indonesian reciprocal forms below (from Sneddon 1996: 104):
| 根 | 互惠的 | ||
| 托隆 | '帮助' | 托隆-梅诺隆 | ‘互相帮助’ |
| 普库尔 | '打' | 普库尔-梅穆库尔 | ‘互相打击’ |
| 昆戎 | '访问' | 孩子 | ‘互相拜访’ |
| 佩卢克 | '拥抱' | 佩卢克-梅卢克 | ‘互相拥抱’ |
| 特尔蓬 | '电话' | 特尔蓬-梅内尔蓬 | ‘互相打电话’ |
| 蒂卡姆 | '刺' | _____ | ‘互相捅刀子’ |
| 平贾姆 | '借' | _____ | “互相借用” |
| 塔瓦尔 | '便宜货' | _____ | ‘互相讨价还价’ |
芬兰语。以下芬兰语数据(来自 Leney 1993)以主格和部分格形式给出。部分格用于量化名词,例如monta kilometri-ä “几公里 -部分”,kolme kuningas-ta “三个国王 -部分”或lasi viini-ä “一杯葡萄酒 -部分”。研究数据并回答后面的问题。
Finnish. The Finnish data below (from Leney 1993) are given in both the nominative and the partitive case. Partitive is used for quantified nouns, such as monta kilometri-ä ‘many kilometer-PART,’ kolme kuningas-ta ‘three king-PART’ or lasi viini-ä ‘a glass of wine-PART.’ Study the data and answer the questions that follow.
| 基本(标称) | 部分 | |
| 公里 | '公里' | 公里 |
| 库宁加斯 | '国王' | 库宁加斯塔 |
| 维尼 | '葡萄酒' | 维尼艾 |
| 鲁诺 | '诗' | 鲁诺阿 |
| 豪陶斯马 | '公墓' | 豪陶斯马塔 |
| 莱帕 | '面包' | 莱帕 |
| 蒂塔尔 | '女儿' | 泰塔尔泰 |
| 泰特 | '女孩' | 泰特奥 |
| 卡图 | '街道' | 卡图阿 |
| 凯尔吉斯 | ‘猪排’ | 凯尔伊斯塔 |
| 萨那 | '单词' | 萨那 |
| 奥卢特 | '啤酒' | 奥卢塔 |
| 球座 | '茶' | 蒂塔 |
| 密斯 | '男人' | 米斯特 |
| 领带 | '路' | 蒂埃塔 |
| 奈特什 | '行为' | 暂无 |
| 拉普洛 | '瓶子' | 普洛阿 |
| 科勒加 | '同事' | 科勒加 |
| 亨基洛 | '人' | _____ |
| 洛马 | '假期' | _____ |
| 埃西蒂斯 | '表现' | _____ |
| 玛阿 | '国家' | _____ |
约鲁巴语。考虑以下来自尼日利亚一种语言——约鲁巴语(源自阿金拉比语,待会儿见)的数据。(为简单起见,省略了音调符号。)
Yoruba. Consider the following data from Yoruba, a language spoken in Nigeria (from Akinlabi, to appear). (Tone marks have been omitted for the sake of simplicity.)
| 格博纳 | ‘保持温暖’ | 吉比博纳 | ‘温暖,热’ |
| 达拉 | ‘做个好人’ | 迪达拉 | ‘善良’ |
| 韩元 | “花费很多” | 維文 | '昂贵' |
| 耶 | '吃' | 吉杰 | ‘(吃)东西’ |
| 跑了 | '缝' | 里兰 | “缝纫” |
| 格贝 | '拿' | ||
| 亩 | '喝' |
希伯来语。考虑以下数据(来自 Glinert 1989;Simon Mauck pc):
Hebrew. Consider the following data (from Glinert 1989; Simon Mauck p.c.):
| 塔尔布特 | '文化' | 雙turbat | ‘有文化’ |
| 柯萨夫 | '星星' | m ə kuxav | ‘星光灿烂’ |
| 皮尔佩尔 | '胡椒' | m ə蛹 | '机智' |
| 佩塔姆 | '奶牛' | m ə putam | '胖的' |
| 跛脚 | '知识' | _____ | ‘受过教育’ |
| 蒂佩 | '傻子' | _____ | ‘愚蠢’ |
| 卡沃德 | '荣誉' | _____ | '荣幸' |
英语。考虑以下英语数据并回答后面的问题。
English. Consider the following English data and answer the questions that follow.
| 一个 | 乙 | ||
| 深的 | 深化 | 低的 | *低 |
| 白色的 | 美白 | 蓝色的 | *蓝色 |
| 红色的 | 变红 | 绿色的 | *绿化 |
| 胖的 | 催肥 | 肥胖 | *肥胖 |
| 宽的 | 扩大 | 狭窄的 | *缩小 |
| 黑暗的 | 变暗 | 暗淡 | *暗淡 |
| 短的 | 缩短 | 高的 | *塔伦 |
| 较少的 | 减少 | 更多的 | *莫伦 |
| 潮湿 | 濡 | 干燥 | *干燥 |
| 便宜的 | 贬值 | 昂贵的 | *昂贵 |
| 伤心 | 悲伤 | 快乐的 | *快乐 |
| 艰难的 | 使坚韧 | 强的 | *加强 |
| 新鲜的 | 清新 | 陈旧 | *陈旧 |
| 直的 | 拉直 | 弯曲 | *弯曲 |
| 甜的 | 变甜 | 酸的 | *酸味 |
| 粗 | 粗化 | 美好的 | *精细 |
| 居住 | (活跃 | 乏味的 | *暗淡 |
考虑第 97 页关于儿童如何在语境中习得屈折对比的简短讨论。试着想一想儿童可以做到这一点的情景。例如,儿童可以通过观察与事件相关的不同语境中不同角色的名词来习得格区分,例如“女孩——NOM拍着狗——ACC”与“女孩——NOM拉着狗——GEN尾巴——ACC ”与“狗——NOM咬了女孩——ACC ”。你能创造一些语境来习得其他屈折,比如时态、体、数、性别和语气吗?
Consider the brief discussion on p. 97 on how children acquire inflectional contrasts in context. Try to think of scenarios by which the child could do this. For example, children might acquire case distinctions by observing a noun spoken in different contexts in different roles in relation to an event, e.g. ‘The girl-NOM was patting the dog-ACC’ vs. ‘The girl-NOM pulled the dog-GEN tail-ACC,’ vs. ‘The dog-NOM bit the girl-ACC.’ Can you create some contexts for acquiring other inflections, such as tense, aspect, number, gender, and mood?
阿尔巴尼亚语。考虑以下数据(来自 Camaj 1984)并回答以下问题:
Albanian. Consider the following data (from Camaj 1984) and answer the questions below:
| 谢利姆 | “我们带来” |
| 西莱什 | ‘你(单数)被带了’ |
| 波斯耶尔 | “我带来了” |
| 锡莱姆 | “我被带走了” |
| 波西莱姆 | “我被带走了” |
| 点ə sillem | “我会被带走” |
| 西莱米 | “我们被带” |
| 点ə sjell ə sh | “你(单唱)会带来” |
| 讓ə sjell ə sh | “你(唱)应该带” |
| 点ə sjell | “我将带来” |
| 波斯耶利姆 | “我们带来了” |
| 点ə sjellim | “我们将带来” |
| 波西莱米 | “我们被带走了” |
| 点ə sillesh | “你(单数)将被带走” |
| 讓ə sjellim | “我们应该带来” |
| '应该' | _____ |
| 进行性语素 | _____ |
| 未来语素 | _____ |
| “我带来” | _____ |
| “你被带走了” | _____ |
| “我们将被带” | _____ |
| “我应该带” | _____ |
西班牙语。研究以下数据并回答以下问题:
Spanish. Study the following data and answer the questions that follow:
短音 '简短的' 拉布雷韦达 ‘简洁,简洁’ 科尔托 ‘矮小;害羞’ 拉科特达 ‘矮小;害羞’ 残忍的 '残忍的' 残忍的父亲 '残酷' 恩费尔莫 ‘生病,病了’ 拉恩费梅达 '疾病' 兄弟会 '兄弟' 拉埃曼达 ‘兄弟情谊’ 不当 '不当' 不正当的行为 ‘不当行为’ 莱韦 ‘轻松,琐碎’ 拉莱韦达 '亮度' 利维亚诺 ‘善变’ 拉利维安达 ‘反复无常’ 马尔 '邪恶的' 拉马尔达 ‘邪恶’ 独奏 ‘独自一人,孤独’ 拉索莱达 ‘孤独’ 变异 '各种各样的' 拉瓦莱达 '种类' (la)viuda '寡妇' 拉比乌德达 ‘丧偶’
breve ‘brief’ la brevedad ‘briefness, brevity’ corto ‘short; bashful’ la cortedad ‘shortness; shyness’ cruel ‘cruel’ la crueldad ‘cruelty’ enfermo ‘ill, sick’ la enfermedad ‘illness’ (el) hermano ‘brother’ la hermandad ‘brotherhood’ impropio ‘improper’ la impropiedad ‘impropriety’ leve ‘light, trivial’ la levedad ‘lightness’ liviano ‘fickle’ la liviandad ‘fickleness’ mal ‘evil’ la maldad ‘wickedness’ solo ‘alone, solitary’ la soledad ‘solitude’ vario ‘various’ la variedad ‘variety’ (la) viuda ‘widow’ la viudedad ‘widowhood’
| 埃布里奥 | '醉' | _____ | '酒醉' |
| 伊瓜尔 | '平等的' | _____ | '平等' |
| 瓦斯托 | '广阔的' | _____ | ‘广阔’ |
| (埃尔)贝西诺 | '邻居' | _____ | '邻里' |
鲁尼扬科雷语(数据改编自 Morris 和 Kirwan 1972)。鲁尼扬科雷语是一种东非班图语,在乌干达使用。与其他班图语一样,它有一个复杂的名词类系统。典型的鲁尼扬科雷语名词的结构由首元音 (IV)、名词类前缀 (NC) 和词干组成。
Runyankore (data adapted from Morris and Kirwan 1972). Runyankore is an East African Bantu language spoken in Uganda. Like other Bantu languages, it has a complex noun class system. The structure of a typical Runyankore noun consists of an initial vowel (IV), a noun class prefix (NC), and the stem.
考虑以下数据集中的 Runyankore 名词并回答以下问题:
Consider the Runyankore nouns in the data set below and answer the following questions:
| '礼物' | 埃基康科 | '礼物' | |
| '种子' | 恩比博 | ‘种子’ | |
| '矛' | 艾库姆 | ‘矛’ | |
| '孩子' | – | '孩子们' | 阿巴阿纳 |
| '武器' | – | “武器” | 埃比夸托 |
| '贼' | – | “小偷” | 阿巴舒马 |
| 豆 | 埃基辛巴 | 山羊 | 恩布兹 |
| 豆子 | 埃比辛巴 | 山羊 | 恩布兹 |
| 比利山羊 | 恩帕耶 | 匆忙 | o-bw-ira |
| 比利山羊 | 恩帕耶 | 房子 | 延寿 |
| 鸟 | 恩永伊 | 房屋 | 延寿 |
| 鸟类 | 恩永伊 | 猎人 | るなる |
| 书 | 愛他 | 猎人 | 阿巴希吉 |
| 图书 | 愛美塔波 | 无知 | 奥布舍马 |
| 男生 | 噢-MW-噢 | 国王 | 奥穆加贝 |
| 男孩们 | ab-oojo | 国王 | 阿巴加贝 |
| 分支 | 英太吉 | 刀 | e-Ø-misyo |
| 分支 | 天马行空 | 刀具 | e-Ø-misyo |
| 公牛 | e-Ø-numi | 魔法 | 奥布罗戈 |
| 公牛 | e-Ø-numi | 男人 | 奥穆沙贾 |
| 囚禁 | 奥布尼亚格瓦 | 男性 | 阿巴沙贾 |
| 木匠 | 喔木拜子 | 纸 | 恩帕普拉 |
| 木匠 | 阿八百子 | 文件 | 恩帕普拉 |
| 木工 | 喔不拜子 | 父母 | 奥穆扎伊尔 |
| 椅子 | 恩特贝 | 父母 | 阿巴扎伊尔 |
| 椅子 | 恩特贝 | 人 | 奥蒙图 |
| 鸡 | 恩科科 | 人们 | 阿班图 |
| 鸡 | 恩科科 | 路 | 恩古托 |
| 首席 | o-mw-ami | 道路 | 恩古托 |
| 酋长 | 阿巴阿米 | 学校 | 艾绍梅罗 |
| 信心 | 奥布韦埃西杰 | 学校 | 阿玛索梅罗 |
| 栽培 | 奥布辛吉 | 锋利 | 奥布沃奥吉 |
| 白天,太阳 | 艾伊动物 | 沼泽 | 艾特姆 |
| 天、太阳 | 阿玛祖巴 | 沼泽 | 阿玛泰梅 |
| 苦恼 | 奥布萨西 | 桌子 | 埃-Ø-梅扎 |
| 医生 | 奥穆沙霍 | 表 | 埃-Ø-梅扎 |
| 医生 | 阿巴沙霍 | 老师 | 奥姆瓦埃吉萨 |
| 狗 | em-bwa | 教师 | 阿布埃吉萨 |
| 狗 | em-bwa | 事物 | 埃金图 |
| 蛋 | 艾胡里 | 事物 | 伊宾图 |
| 鸡蛋 | 阿玛胡里 | 巫术 | 奥布切切齐 |
| 害怕 | o-bw-oba | 单词 | 埃基甘博 |
| 花 | 埃基拉比奥 | 字 | 艾比甘布 |
| 花朵 | 埃比拉比奥 | 工人 | 奥穆科齐 |
| 女孩 | o-mw-ishiki | 工人 | 阿巴科齐 |
| 女孩们 | 阿巴锦 |
为了理解句子结构的微妙之处,有必要了解短语是如何由其所含单词构成的,以及短语是如何组合成更大的短语和句子的。还有必要了解短语和句子在构建后会发生什么——即,它们的某些部分可以被移动和删除。移动和删除是在特定限制下进行的,说话者似乎无需学习就能“知道”这些限制。所有语言都具有这些基本结构属性,但其背后的原理足够广泛,以至于语言之间存在相当大的差异。本章列举了这些差异的样本。
In order to understand the subtleties of sentence structure, it is necessary to understand how phrases are built from the words they contain and how phrases are combined into larger phrases and sentences. It is also necessary to understand what can happen to phrases and sentences after they are built – namely, parts of them can be moved and deleted. Movement and deletion take place under particular restrictions, and speakers “know” these restrictions, apparently without being taught. All languages share these fundamental structural properties, but the principles that underlie them are broad enough to allow considerable differences among languages. The chapter includes a sampling of these differences.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
人类语言建立在语法原则的基础上。这些原则相互作用形成一个复杂的系统,每个语言的使用者都可以轻松掌握它。然而,这些使用者(包括你)可能从未听说过这些原则,正是因为它们不需要被教授。我们谈论的语法原则与你在学校学到的语法没有太大关系。事实上,小学生对语言的了解超出了他们应该能够从所听到的内容中得出的范围,远远超出了他们所明确教授的内容。人们表现出的语法知识比他们从周围证据中所能获得的更深奥,这种观点被称为刺激贫乏论。
Human language is built on a foundation of grammatical principles. These principles interact to form a complex system that is wielded with ease by every speaker of every language. However, these speakers (including you) have probably never heard of these principles, precisely because they don’t have to be taught. The grammatical principles we are talking about don’t have much to do with the grammar you learned in school. In fact, what schoolchildren know about language goes beyond what they should be able to derive from what they hear, and very far beyond anything they are explicitly taught. The idea that people display a knowledge of grammar that is deeper than what they could get from the evidence around them is called the poverty-of-the-stimulus argument.
为了更清楚地理解刺激贫乏的含义,想象一下这个科幻故事。假设有人在沙漠的偏远地区发现了一个精致的拟人化机器人。研究该机器人的科学家最终弄清楚了如何激活它。当他们这样做时,机器人表现得像一个人,但似乎对周围的世界非常困惑,好像它以前从未见过。科学家们决定尝试一个实验,让机器人观看几场篮球比赛。(请不要问他们为什么要这样做!)机器人非常专注地观看了十几场比赛。这些比赛打得不错,球员很少犯规,而且只是无意犯规。然而,比赛的裁判很松散,有些违规行为被吹罚,但大多数没有。
To get a clearer idea of what poverty of the stimulus means, imagine this science fiction tale. Suppose somebody found an exquisitely anthropomorphic robot in a remote part of a desert. The scientists who examined the robot eventually figured out how to activate it. When they did, the robot behaved like a person, but seemed very puzzled about the world around it, as if it had never seen it before. The scientists decided to try an experiment, allowing the robot to watch several basketball games. (Please don’t ask why they would do that!) The robot watched a dozen or so games very intently. These games were well played, with players seldom committing infractions, and then only unintentionally. However, the games were loosely officiated, with some violations called, but most not.
随后,机器人穿上了运动服,开始参加比赛。令所有人惊讶的是,它竟然是一名非常出色的篮球运动员,对篮球运动了如指掌。起初,机器人似乎只是一名非常细心的观察者。它所做的一切都是它所看到的球员所做的。但后来,一位特别细心的科学家注意到机器人在比赛中有些奇怪。虽然它做了它所看到的球员所做的大部分事情,但它从未违反任何规则。例如,它从未在停下后再次开始运球,也从未试图在不运球的情况下带球跑动。这位科学家认为这一点值得注意,因为尽管机器人很少看到人类球员做这些事情,但这样做会非常有利。为什么机器人会得出“双重运球”和“走步”是不允许的,而不是假设人类球员只是没有利用一些非常有用的策略呢?
The robot then was suited up and was put in a game. Much to everyone’s amazement, it proved to be an excellent basketball player who knew the game very well. At first, it seemed that the robot was simply a very careful observer. It was doing everything that it had seen the players do. But then a particularly observant scientist noticed something odd about the robot’s game. Although it did most of the things it had seen the players do, it never broke any rules. For example, it never started to dribble again after it had stopped, and it never tried to run with the ball without dribbling. The scientist thought this was notable because, although the robot had rarely seen human players doing these things, it would be very advantageous to do them. Why did the robot conclude that “the double dribble” and “traveling” were not allowed, rather than assuming that the human players simply weren’t taking advantage of some very useful strategies?
这位科学家认为,也许机器人认为它没有看到的任何动作都是违反规则的,但事实证明并非如此。机器人从未见过有人在它背后运球,但它确实在几次场合中这样做了。它怎么知道这是允许的呢?更令人惊讶的是,有两次它跳到空中,然后落在在球队将球带入进攻端后,机器人向后拍球,同时向前拍球,防止球进入防守区。这可以防止后场违例,但机器人怎么知道的呢?在它观看的比赛中,从来没有发生过后场违例。
Perhaps, thought the scientist, the robot concluded that anything it hadn’t seen was against the rules, but this turned out not to be true. The robot had never seen anyone dribble the ball behind his back, but on several occasions it did just that. How did it know this is allowed? Even more remarkably, on two occasions it leaped into the air and fell on its back while slapping the ball forward to keep it from going into the defensive half of the court after its team had brought it into the offensive end. This prevented a back-court violation, but how did the robot know? In the games it had watched there were never any back-court violations.
这位科学家决定采访一下机器人。她架设了一个监视器,播放了一段精心挑选的篮球比赛视频,其中有些视频违反了规则,有些视频虽然不寻常但却合法,她问机器人它所看到的比赛是否违反了规则。
The scientist decided to interview the robot. She set up a monitor and showed a carefully selected video of a number of basketball plays – some showing violations of the rules and some showing unusual but legal plays – and asked the robot if what it saw was against the rules or not.
接下来发生的事情令人惊叹。机器人准确地指出了允许和不允许的打法,几乎没有错误。在违反规则的情况下,科学家会问机器人违反了什么规则。但机器人无法告诉她规则是什么,只能说不允许这种打法。当科学家问起时,机器人肯定地说,在实验之前它从未见过有人打篮球。科学家不情愿地得出了一个既不可避免又不太可能的结论。机器人在不知情的情况下被预先编程了篮球规则!
What happened next was remarkable. The robot accurately pointed out the plays that were allowed and the ones that were not, with almost no errors. In the case of rule violations, the scientist would ask the robot what rule was violated. But the robot could not tell her the rule, just that the play wasn’t allowed. When the scientist asked, the robot affirmed that it had never seen anyone play basketball before the experiment. The scientist reluctantly came to a conclusion that was as unavoidable as it was improbable. The robot had been preprogrammed with the rules of basketball without being aware of it!
正是这种推理导致许多语言学家得出这样的结论:人们“预先设定”了语法原则。在生命的最初几年里,儿童在语言方面经历了广泛的认知发展,我们称由此产生的认知语言系统为“语法”。从这个角度来看,语法是生物学的——一种语言器官(Anderson and Lightfoot 2002)。我们不知道语法物理表现。但是,人们说话时以及被问及某些结构是否允许时所表现出的系统行为使我们能够非常具体地描述语法。就像机器人在观看一些比赛时直观地意识到篮球规则一样,语法是出现的,并且它的出现受到遗传编码原则的密切指导。例如,英语使用者的语法允许Kim loves himself,但不允许People around Kim love himself。英语使用者可以告诉你第一个例子很好,第二个例子不好,但他们不能告诉你原因。如果他们试图解释规则,他们很可能会弄错。他们几乎肯定没有在课堂上学过这些例子。学校。
It is just this sort of reasoning that has led many linguists to the conclusion that people are “preprogrammed” with principles of grammar. In the first few years of life, children undergo extensive cognitive development with respect to language, and we call the resulting cognitive language systems “grammars.” A grammar, in this view, is biological – a language organ (Anderson and Lightfoot 2002). We don’t know just how a grammar is physically represented in an individual’s brain. But the systematic behavior that people display when they speak, and when they are asked whether or not certain structures are allowed, makes it possible for us to describe the grammar quite specifically. Just as the robot became intuitively aware of the rules of basketball as it watched some games, the grammar emerges when children are exposed to particular languages, and its emergence is closely guided by genetically encoded principles. For example, English speakers have grammars that allow Kim loves herself, but not People around Kim love herself. English speakers can tell you that the first example is fine and the second isn’t, but they can’t tell you why. If they try to explain the rule, they are likely to get it wrong. They almost certainly were not taught anything about these examples in school.
从这个意义上讲,语法必须包含某些元素。它必须包括单词列表和一组将单词分组为短语的规则。指导句子结构的规则将是本章大部分内容的重点。(关于指导单词组合的规则,请参阅第 2 章。)对这些规则以及一般句子结构的研究被称为句法。在本章的这一部分中,我们将演示如何仔细地对英语进行句法分析。分析的目的是创建英语使用者的语法(语言器官)的部分表示。
A grammar, in this sense, must contain certain elements. It must include a list of words and a set of rules for grouping the words into phrases. The rules that guide sentence structure will be the focus of the majority of the chapter. (On the rules that guide how words are put together, see Chapter 2.) The study of these rules, and of sentence structure in general, is referred to as syntax. In this section of the chapter, we will demonstrate how to carefully conduct a syntactic analysis of English. The goal of the analysis is to create a partial representation of the grammar (language organ) of an English speaker.
语言的单词存储在词典中——这是人们大脑中的心理词典,而不是书本中的词典。每个单词有一个词条,其中包含有关如何发音、含义以及(对于我们的目的而言最重要的)其句法类别的信息。单词的句法类别提供了有关其在句子中出现位置的信息 - 这有时称为其句法分布。在(1)中,有一个单词bee的示例词条。
The words of a language are stored in a lexicon – a mental dictionary in people’s brains rather than in a book. Each word has a lexical entry which contains information on how to pronounce the word, what it means, and (most importantly for our purposes) its syntactic category. The syntactic category of a word gives information about where it can appear in a sentence – this is sometimes called its syntactic distribution. In (1), there is a sample lexical entry for the word bee.
| (1) |
发音: [bi] Pronunciation: [bi] 含义:嗡嗡作响的飞行昆虫;有黄色和黑色条纹;酿蜂蜜等。 Meaning: a buzzing, flying insect; has yellow and black stripes; makes honey, etc. 句法类别:名词 Syntactic category: Noun |
您可能以前遇到过句法类别,因为它们有时被称为“词性”(名词、形容词等)。也许您甚至学过与它们的含义有关的定义(“名词是人、地点或事物”或“动词是动作”)。但是,这些基于含义的定义并不可靠( admiration是人、地点还是事物?contain是动作吗?)。今后,句法类别将根据它们在句子或短语中出现的位置进行定义。
You probably have encountered syntactic categories before as they are sometimes referred to as “parts of speech” (noun, adjective, etc.). Perhaps you even learned definitions for them that had to do with their meaning (‘a noun is a person, place or thing’ or ‘a verb is an action’). However, these meaning-based definitions are unreliable (Is admiration a person, place or thing? Is contain an action?). Syntactic categories will be defined henceforth according to where they can appear in a sentence or phrase.
某种类型的词可以出现在介词(on campus)、冠词(the bee)和形容词(the small snail)之后。我们将这些词称为名词。至关重要的是,当名词出现在介词之后时,不需要其他词跟在名词后面,限定词或形容词(即,在campus、bee和snail之后不需要其他单词)。另一类词可以跟在情态动词之后(will/must/may/should包含),并且可以通过not来否定,使用类似于I will not cook the turkey 的句子。我们将这些词称为动词。
A certain type of word can appear after prepositions (on campus), after articles (the bee) and after adjectives (the small snail). We will call these words nouns. Crucially, no other word has to follow the noun when it appears after a preposition, determiner or adjective (that is, there are no other words required after campus, bee and snail). Another type of word can follow modals (will/must/may/should contain) and can be negated by not, using sentences similar to I will not cook the turkey. We will call these words verbs.
除了在句子中的分布不同之外,不同的句法类别还可以采用不同类型的结尾。例如,英语名词可以采用复数后缀-s,如bees或snails。动词可以采用过去时后缀-ed,如cooked。这些差异本质上是形态上的(与词的形式有关;参见 第 2 章),但它们也是句法类别的有用指标。
In addition to their differing distributions within sentences, different syntactic categories also can take different kinds of endings. For example, English nouns can take a a plural suffix -s as in bees or snails. Verbs can take a past-tense suffix -ed as in cooked. These differences are morphological in nature (relating to the form of words; see Chapter 2), but they are also useful indicators of syntactic category.
冠词和名词之间还会出现另一种句法类别(大云),我们将这些词称为形容词。形容词没有固定的结尾,但有些形容词可以以比较级后缀-er结尾(小云)。最后一种主要的句法类别的分布很难定义,但它们通常以-ly结尾(坦率地说,我从不喜欢 Henry和The dog quick ate the kibble)。我们将这些词称为副词。
Another type of syntactic category can appear between articles and nouns (the massive clouds), and we will call these words adjectives. Adjectives do not take a consistent ending, but some adjectives can end in the comparative suffix -er (the smaller clouds). The last major type of syntactic category has a distribution that is difficult to define, but they often end in -ly (Frankly, I never liked Henry and The dog quickly ate the kibble). We will call these words adverbs.
上述分布描述仅供参考 - 并非所有名词、动词、形容词和副词都满足所有相关标准,但大多数都满足。名词、动词、形容词和副词通常被称为词汇范畴- 它们在语义上具有内容性,并直接影响句子的含义。这与功能范畴形成对比- 功能范畴中的词在语义上较弱,对句子结构的贡献大于对含义的贡献。功能句法范畴包括 限定词(此范畴的成员包括像this和those 这样的指示词,以及像the和a这样的冠词)和介词(at、from、into)。随着我们研究越来越复杂的句子,我们将介绍更多的功能范畴。
The distributional descriptions above are intended as guidelines – not all nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs fulfill all the relevant criteria, but most do. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are often called lexical categories – they are semantically contentful and contribute directly to the meaning of the sentence. This is in contrast to the functional categories – words in functional categories are semantically weak, and contribute more to the structure of sentences than to the meaning. Functional syntactic categories include determiners (members of this category include demonstratives like this and those, as well as articles like the and a) and prepositions (at, from, into). We will introduce more functional categories as we examine more and more complex sentences.
总而言之,我们介绍了六个句法类别:名词、动词、形容词和副词(词汇类别),以及限定词和介词(功能类别)。请参阅语法类别表,了解本节的信息摘要(该表还包含有关另外两个功能类别的信息,即词形变化和补语,将在本章后面介绍)。
All in all, then, we’ve introduced six syntactic categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (lexical categories), and determiners and prepositions (functional categories). Please see the table of grammatical categories for a summary of the information in this section (the table also contains information on two additional functional categories, inflection and complementizer, that will be introduced later on in the chapter).
如今,小学里教授的语法并不像 20 世纪 50 年代和 60 年代那样明确。确定母语中单词的句法类别可能很困难,因为你没有经过太多明确的指导就掌握了它,而且即使没有任何术语也能很好地使用它。许多学生都对副词、名词、动词、动名词等术语望而生畏。传统的定义,例如“名词是人、地点或事物”,并不适用于唱歌或爱等抽象事件或概念的词。此外,由于同音异义词的存在,确定一个词属于哪个类别也很复杂:同音异义词发音和拼写相同,但含义不同 - 这些含义可能属于多个句法类别。例如,fax可以是名词(如 (i)),也可以是动词(如 (ii))。
These days grammar isn’t taught in grade school as explicitly as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Determining the syntactic category of a word in your native language can be difficult because you acquired it without much explicit instruction and use it just fine without any terminology. Many students are daunted by the terms adverb, noun, verb, gerund, etc. The traditional definitions, such as “a noun is a person, place or thing,” don’t work well for words like singing or love which are abstract events or notions. In addition, figuring out which category a word belongs to is complicated by the existence of homonyms: words that sound and are spelled the same but have different meanings – and those meanings may be in more than one syntactic category. For example, fax can be a noun, as in (i), or it can be a verb as in (ii).
更令人困惑的是,名词和形容词可以从动词派生出来:
To make things more confusing, nouns and adjectives can be derived from verbs:
那么学生如何知道一个单词属于哪一类呢?确定单词类别的最好方法是看它与之共现的词素种类。例如,在 (i) 中,单词fax与限定词(定冠词the)共现。作为名词,它也可以与所有格限定词共现,例如his fax。它可以被形容词修饰,如长 fax,甚至可以被整个修饰短语修饰,如the fax that is sitting on the desk。在有格标记的语言中(见第 2 章和第4章),通常是名词带有格标记,即使它们是从动词派生而来的。以-ing为词形变位的英语单词 后缀比较棘手,因为它们可以是动词、名词或形容词,如示例 (iii)、(iv) 和 (v) 所示。以这种方式从动词派生的名词称为动名词。
How then is a student to know which category a word belongs to? The best way to determine the category of a word is to look at the kinds of morphemes it co-occurs with. In (i), for example, the word fax co-occurs with a determiner, the definite article the. As a noun, it could also co-occur with a possessive determiner, such as his fax. It can be modified by an adjective, as in the long fax, or even by an entire modifying phrase such as the fax that is sitting on the desk. In languages that have case marking (see Chapters 2 and 4), it is typically nouns that are marked for case, even if they have been derived from verbs. English words inflected with the -ing suffix are tricky, as they can be verbs, nouns, or adjectives, as shown in examples (iii), (iv), and (v). Nouns derived from verbs this way are called gerunds.
在 (ii) 中, fax一词用作动词。在英语中,将名词转化为动词的过程经常发生,而且很容易。除了应用与动词同时出现的适当词形变化(如时态和人称/数)外,不需要特殊的形态同意(例如,我把它传真了,她经常把它传真给文件),或者添加不定式标记(例如,传真)。动词可以和助动词一起出现,例如have或be的形式(例如,我们已经把要约传真给你了,他现在正在把它传真过来),或者情态动词(见第 2 章和第4章)(例如,我们应该马上把它传真过来)。动词经常被副词修饰,事实上,区分动词和名词的一种方法是比较修饰形式;虽然副词可以修饰动词,但只有形容词可以修饰名词:
In (ii), the word fax is used as a verb. In English this process of turning nouns into verbs occurs frequently and easily. No special morphology is required other than applying the appropriate inflections that co-occur with verbs, such as tense and person/number agreement (e.g. I fax-ed it, She fax-es documents often), or by adding the infinitive marker (e.g. to fax). Verbs may appear with auxiliary verbs, such as forms of have or be (e.g. We have faxed you the offer, He is faxing it over right now), or modals (see Chapters 2 and 4) (e.g. We should fax it right away). Verbs are often modified by adverbs, and in fact, one way of distinguishing verbs from nouns is by comparing forms of modification; although adverbs can modify verbs, only adjectives modify nouns:
*他们最近的传真让我们很惊讶。[ recently是副词,不能修饰名词]
*Their recently fax surprised us. [recently is an adverb and cannot modify nouns]
下面列出了一些最常见的句法类别的示例。请注意,有些单词出现在多个类别中。使用这些单词在其不同的句法类别中造句。
Examples of some of the most common syntactic categories are listed below. Notice that some words appear in more than one category. Make up a sentence using each of these words in its different syntactic categories.
现在我们对组成句子的单词集有了更好的理解,我们可以开始研究句子本身的结构了。每种语言语法的一个基本特性是它是组合性的:句子由小句和短语组成,而小句和短语又由小句和短语或单词组成。我们可以使用规则来捕捉不同类型的单词如何组合成短语,而短语又如何组合成句子。短语结构规则是一种描述性工具,是一种表达母语人士如何组合单词、短语和从句的模式的方法。它不是一种规定性手段(说话者应该做什么);语法和短语结构规则旨在代表母语人士做什么,而不是告诉他们如何做。(有关描述主义和规定主义的更多信息,请参阅框 3.2。)
Now that we have a better understanding of the set of words which make up sentences, we can start to investigate the structure of the sentences themselves. A fundamental property of the grammar of every language is that it is compositional: sentences are made of clauses and phrases, which in turn are made up of smaller clauses and phrases or words. We can use rules to capture how different types of words combine to make phrases, which in turn combine to make sentences. A phrase structure rule is a descriptive tool, a way to express a pattern in how words and phrases and clauses are combined by native speakers of a language. It is not a prescriptive device (what a speaker should do); grammars – and phrase structure rules – seek to represent what native speakers do, not tell them how to do it. (See Box 3.2 for more on descriptivism and prescriptivism.)
语法性这一概念不同于你在学校学到的“正确”或“恰当”的英语。例如,你可能被告知不定式(to go、to laugh、to dance)不应“分裂”——to 和动词之间不应有任何单词。然而,在对话和书面英语中,这条“规则”总是被打破,甚至没有人注意到(想想经典科幻小说中的名言: 勇敢地去没有人去过的地方)。你注意到本章本节正文中的不定式分裂了吗?很可能没有。
Grammaticality as a concept is different from the idea of “proper” or “correct” English that you may have been taught in school. For example, you may have been told that infinitives (to go, to laugh, to dance) should not be “split” – no words should come between to and the verb. In conversation and in written English, though, this “rule” is broken all the time without anyone even noticing (consider the classic science fiction quote: to boldly go where no one has gone before). Did you notice the split infinitive in the main text of this section of the chapter? The odds are, probably not.
带有分裂不定式的句子对英语使用者来说很自然,因此被认为是合乎语法的。像“不要分裂不定式”这样的规则只是一种不同于语法规则的规则。这类规则通常被称为规定性规则,被广泛地视为帮助人们清晰写作的规则。规定性规则不应被误认为是我们将要研究的很大程度上无意识的短语结构规则。请记住,你在某些时候必须被告知不要分裂不定式,也许你至今还在检查你的写作以确保你遵守这条规则。但是,没有人告诉你句子必须以名词短语开头(正如我们将在下面看到的),你也永远不必检查你的写作或演讲以确保你没有违反这条规则。
Sentences with split infinitives are naturally acceptable to English speakers and thus considered grammatical. Rules like “don’t split infinitives” are simply a different type of rule than grammatical rules. Such rules are often called prescriptive rules and are most generously viewed as rules to help people write clearly. Prescriptive rules should not be mistaken for the largely unconscious rules of phrase structure that we will investigate. Bear in mind that you had to be told at some point not to split infinitives, and perhaps you check your writing to this day to make sure you abide by that rule. However, nobody told you that sentences must start with noun phrases (as we will see below), and you never have to check your writing or your speech to make sure that you did not break this rule.
考虑以下句子:
Consider the following sentence:
| (2) |
这只可爱的小狗舔了一只脾气暴躁的猫。 The adorable puppy licked a cranky cat. |
句子结构分析的目标之一是找出一组可以描述一种语言的所有可能句子的规则。由于(2)是英语的一个可能句子,我们需要有一个规则。如果我们简单地把(2)中找到的所有句法类别列成一行,规则将如下所示:
One of the goals of an analysis of sentence structure is to figure out the set of rules that can describe all the possible sentences of a language. Since (2) is a possible sentence of English, we need to have a rule for it. If we simply list in a row all the syntactic categories that are found in (2), the rule will look like the following:
| (3) |
句子规则:版本 1 Sentence rule: version 1 句子→限定词 形容词 名词 动词 限定词 形容词 名词 Sentence → Determiner Adjective Noun Verb Determiner Adjective Noun |
这可以理解为“一个句子包含一个限定词、一个形容词、一个名词、一个动词、一个限定词、一个形容词和一个名词,按这个顺序排列。”显然,并不是所有的句子都包含所有这些类别,所以我们需要修改我们的规则。
This can be read as a “A sentence contains a determiner, an adjective, a noun, a verb, a determiner, an adjective and a noun, in that order.” Obviously, not all sentences contain all of these categories, though, so we need to revise our rule.
我们可以开始改进(3)中的规则的一种方法是,注意(2)中的某些单词似乎比其他单词更相关。单词the和cute最自然地与puppy组合在一起,单词a和cranky最自然地与cat组合在一起。我们将这些组(the cute puppy和the cranky cat)称为名词短语 (NPs)。现在我们可以编写句子规则的新版本。
One way we can begin to refine the rule in (3) is by noticing that some of the words in (2) seem more related than others. The words the and adorable group most naturally with puppy, and the words a and cranky group most naturally with cat. Let’s call each of these groups (the adorable puppy and the cranky cat) noun phrases (NPs). Now we can write a new version of the sentence rule.
| (4) |
句子规则:版本 2 Sentence rule: version 2 句子→ NP 动词 NP Sentence → NP Verb NP |
我们还可以编写一条规则来描述 NP 本身的内容。对于(2)中的 NP ,这是一个限定词 ( a/the )、一个形容词 ( adorable/cranky ) 和一个名词 ( puppy/cat )。限定词和形容词一般都是名词短语的可选成员(考虑(2)的这个修改版本:Puppies licked cats)。我们将通过在规则中将它们括起来来表达这一点。
We can also write a rule describing the contents of an NP itself. For the NPs in (2), that’s a determiner (a/the) an adjective (adorable/cranky) and a noun (puppy/cat). Both determiners and adjectives are optional members of noun phrases in general (consider this modified version of (2): Puppies licked cats). We will express this by putting parentheses around them in the rule.
| (5) |
NP → (限定词) (形容词) 名词 NP → (Determiner) (Adjective) Noun |
可以这样理解:“名词短语包含可选限定词、可选形容词和必需名词,顺序依次为”。由于名词是必需元素,我们以此命名整个短语。从句法术语上讲,名词是名词短语的 头。
This can be read “a noun phrase contains an optional determiner, an optional adjective and an obligatory noun, in that order.” Since the noun is the obligatory element, we name the whole phrase after it. In syntactic terminology, the noun is the head of the noun phrase.
请注意, (5)中的 NP 规则允许名词短语只包含一个名词(因为名词是唯一的必需元素)、一个限定词和一个名词、一个形容词和一个名词,或者同时包含所有三个类别。所有这些不同类型的 NP 都是可能的(puppies、the puppies、brown puppies、the brown puppies),这证明我们的规则是正确的。
Note that the NP rule in (5) allows noun phrases to contain just a noun (since the noun is the only obligatory element), a determiner and a noun, an adjective and a noun, or all three categories at once. All of these different kinds of NPs are possible (puppies, the puppies, brown puppies, the brown puppies), which is evidence that our rule is on the right track.
名词短语之类的“自然词组”的专业术语是成分。有各种测试方法可以确定特定字符串是否是成分。我们将重点介绍替换测试。如果一组词可以用一个词替换,那么该组词就是成分。例如,我们可以用it替换the cute puppy,得到句子It licked a cranky cat。由于这个句子是可接受的英语句子,因此我们已确认 the cute puppy是成分,具体来说,是名词短语。
The technical term for a “natural grouping of words” like an NP is a constituent. There are various tests to determine whether a particular string of words is a constituent. We will focus on the replacement test. If a group of words can be replaced by a single word, then that group of words is a constituent. For example, we can replace the adorable puppy with it, resulting in the sentence It licked a cranky cat. Since this sentence is an acceptable sentence of English, we have confirmed that the adorable puppy is a constituent, specifically, an NP.
现在考虑以下句子:
Consider now the following sentence:
| (6) |
这只可爱的小狗舔了一只脾气暴躁的猫,丑陋的哈巴狗也是如此。 The adorable puppy licked a cranky cat, and so did the ugly pug. |
那只丑陋的哈巴狗做了什么?它舔了一只暴躁的猫,就像那只可爱的小狗一样。单词so似乎在替换单词串licked a cranky cat。这意味着licked a cranky cat必须是一个成分。我们将这个成分称为动词短语 (VP)。这是因为动词是必需的,而它后面的 NP 是可选的,具体取决于句子中的动词(请考虑The lovely puppy ran)。
What did the ugly pug do? It licked a cranky cat, just like the adorable puppy. The word so seems to be replacing the string of words licked a cranky cat. This means that licked a cranky cat must be a constituent. We’ll call this constituent a verb phrase (VP). This is because the verb is obligatory and the NP following it is optional, depending on the verb in the sentence (consider The adorable puppy ran).
| (7) |
VP →动词 (NP) VP → Verb (NP) |
现在我们可以进一步修改我们的句子规则:
We can now revise our sentence rule even further:
| (8) |
句子规则:版本 3 Sentence rule: version 3 句子→ NP VP Sentence → NP VP |
版本 3 仍然解释我们的原始句子(2):the cute puppy是第一个 NP,然后有一个 VP 包含licked(动词)和a cranky cat(NP)。但是,与版本 1 和 2 相比,有了显著的改进。这是因为它可以描述比(2)多得多的句子,也比版本 1 或 2 多得多的句子 - 它是一个更通用的规则。它可以描述在 VP 之后有 NP 的句子,也可以描述没有 NP 的句子(因为在 VP 规则中 NP 是可选的)。它解释了在所有名词之前有限定词的句子,或者没有限定词的句子(因为在 NP 规则中限定词是可选的)。等等。句子结构分析的目标是在忠于事实的同时创建最通用的规则。很多英语句子都符合(8)中的规则,你可以自己调查一下。
Version 3 still accounts for our original sentence (2) : the adorable puppy is the first NP, and then there is a VP that contains licked (a verb) and a cranky cat (an NP). However, it is a significant improvement over versions 1 and 2. This is because it can describe many more sentences than (2) and many more sentences than versions 1 or 2 – it is a more general rule. It can describe sentences that have an NP after the VP and sentences that don’t (since NP is optional in the VP rule). It accounts for sentences that have determiners before all the nouns or sentences that don’t (since determiners are optional in the NP rule). And so forth. It is a goal of sentence structure analyses to create the most general rules possible while staying true to the facts. Many, many sentences of English conform to the rule in (8), as you can investigate for yourself.
到目前为止,我们已经掌握了以下英语语法的句子结构规则。请注意,我们已经开始使用缩写来更清楚地表示规则(D = 限定词,A = 形容词,N = 名词,V = 动词)。
So far, we have the following sentence structure rules for the grammar of English. Note that we have started to use abbreviations to represent the rules more perspicuously (D = determiner, A = adjective, N = noun, V = verb).
| (9) |
句子→ NP VP Sentence → NP VP 名词→ (D) (A) N NP → (D) (A) N VP → V (NP) VP → V (NP) |
这些规则被称为短语结构规则,因为它们描述了语言中短语和句子的结构。
These rules are known as phrase structure rules, since they describe the structure of phrases and sentences in a language.
我们在本章的这一部分研究的大多数句子都是可接受的英语句子,任何以英语为母语的人都会识别为有效字符串的句子 语言的词汇。语言学术语称之为语法性;(10)是英语的语法句子。
Most of the sentences that we investigate in this part of the chapter are acceptable sentences of English, sentences that any native speaker would recognize as valid strings of words of the language. The linguistic term for this is grammaticality; (10) is a grammatical sentence of English.
| (10) |
狗吃了粗饲料。 The dog ate the kibble. |
相反,单词Ate the dog the kibble不是可接受的英语句子,因此被语言学家称为不合语法的句子。不合语法的句子通常以星号开头,如(11)所示。
In contrast, the string of words Ate the dog the kibble is not an acceptable sentence of English, and it is accordingly called ungrammatical by linguists. Ungrammatical sentences are conventionally notated with an initial asterisk, as in (11).
| (11) |
*吃了狗粮 *Ate the dog the kibble |
我们一直致力于确保我们的短语结构规则能够解释像(2)这样的语法句子。((2)事实上是由规则生成的;确保您能够明白是如何生成的。)然而,我们还需要确保短语结构规则不会预测像 (11)这样的不合语法的句子。
We have been focused on ensuring that our phrase structure rules can account for grammatical sentences like (2). ((2) is in fact generated by the rules; make sure you can see how.) However, we also need to ensure that the phrase structure rules do not predict ungrammatical sentences like (11).
值得庆幸的是, (9)中的短语结构规则不会预测像(11)这样的句子。句子规则规定句子必须以 NP 开头,但ate是动词,根据 NP 规则,动词不会出现在 NP 中。这表明短语结构规则是正确制定的。然而,(9) 中的短语结构规则确实预测了一些不合语法的句子——例如,*小狗到了猫那里。这表明我们对语法的解释仍需要进一步修改。我们不会讨论这个特定问题,但对于句子结构的研究,重要的是要记住不合语法的句子与合语法的句子同样重要。
Thankfully, the phrase structure rules in (9) do not predict a sentence like (11). The sentence rule states that a sentence must begin with an NP, but ate is a verb, and verbs do not occur in NPs according to the NP rule. This is a sign that the phrase structure rules are properly formulated. However, the phrase structure rules in (9) do predict some ungrammatical sentences – for example, *The puppy arrived the cat. This indicates that our account of the grammar still needs further revision. We will not address this particular problem, but for the study of sentence structure, it is important to keep in mind that ungrammatical sentences can be as important as grammatical ones.
还有另一种更图形化的方式来表示短语结构规则所传达的信息,如今它被句法学家广泛使用。句法学家经常画句法树来表示句子的结构。在句法树中,成分的成员通过通常称为分支的线连接起来。这些图形之所以被称为树,是因为随着它们变得越来越详细,它们开始看起来像倒置的树。考虑图 3.1,这是 NP a fuzzy cats的句法树。成分 NP 的每个成员(限定词a、形容词fuzzy和名词kitty)都通过分支连接到 NP。请注意,类别和短语标签树上一个分支两端的节点称为节点——D 是节点,A 是节点,N 是节点,NP 是节点。从某种意义上说,我们可以从 NP 节点开始向下工作,从树上“读出”NP 短语结构规则。
There is another, more graphical way to represent the information that phrase structure rules convey, and it is used widely by syntacticians today. Syntacticians very often draw syntactic trees to represent the structure of a sentence. In a syntactic tree, the members of a constituent are connected by lines that are conventionally called branches. These figures are called trees because, as they become more detailed, they begin to look like upside-down trees. Consider Figure 3.1, which is the syntactic tree for the NP a fuzzy kitten. Each of the members of the constituent NP (the determiner a, the adjective fuzzy, and the noun kitten) are connected to the NP via branches. Note that the category and phrase labels at both ends of a branch on a tree are called nodes – D is a node, A is a node, N is a node and NP is a node. In a sense, we can “read” the NP phrase structure rule off the tree by starting at the NP node and working downwards.
考虑更复杂的句子“一只毛茸茸的小猫跳舞了”。这个句子可以按照(9)中的短语结构规则生成;它由一个NP(一只毛茸茸的小猫)和一个VP(只包含V“跳舞了”)组成。这个句子的句法树如图3.2所示。
Consider the more complicated sentence A fuzzy kitten danced. This sentence can be generated by following the phrase structure rules in (9); it consists of an NP (a fuzzy kitten) followed by a VP (which contains just the V danced). The syntactic tree for this sentence is in Figure 3.2.
从树的顶部开始,句子节点分为 NP 和 VP,这符合句子规则,即句子包含一个 NP 和一个 VP。根据 NP 规则,NP 节点分为 D、A 和 N(正如我们在图 3.1中看到的那样)。VP 节点下面只有一个分支,通向它的唯一成员,即动词danced。同样,我们可以从句子节点开始向下“读取”树中的短语结构规则。句法树表示的信息与短语结构规则相同,只是方式不同,类似于饼图和条形图通过不同的视觉组织方式表示相同的统计数据。
From the top of the tree, the Sentence node branches into NP and VP, in keeping with the Sentence rule that states that a Sentence contains an NP and a VP. The NP node branches into D, A, and N as per the NP rule (and as we saw in Figure 3.1). The VP node has just a single branch below it leading down to its lone member, the verb danced. Again, we could “read” the phrase structure rules off the tree by starting at the sentence node and working downwards. Syntactic trees represent the same information as phrase structural rules, just in a different way, similar to how pie charts and bar graphs can represent the same statistics through different visual organization.
考虑最后一个例子:这只浣熊吃了垃圾。再次注意,这个句子是按照我们的短语结构规则生成的;它由一个 NP(限定词this和名词raccoon)和一个 VP(包含动词ate和 NP the trash)组成。这个句子的句法树如图 3.3所示;仔细研究它,看看它是如何遵循短语结构规则的。
Consider one last example sentence: This raccoon ate the garbage. Note again that this sentence is generated by following our phrase structure rules; it consists of an NP (the determiner this and the noun raccoon) and a VP (which contains the verb ate and the NP the garbage). The syntactic tree for this sentence is Figure 3.3; work through it to see how it follows the phrase structure rules.
与短语结构规则相比,句法树有一个优势。它们使句子的层次结构直观可见 — — 单词如何组合成成分,成分如何嵌入彼此中,构成越来越大的短语,进而构成句子。在图 3.3中,D the和 N trash形成一个 NP。得到的 NP 与 V ate组合形成 VP。这个 VP 又与 NP(this raccoon)组合构成一个句子。这是句子结构的核心 — — 精确地生成复杂的句子和短语结构,在阅读本章之前,您可能甚至都没有意识到这种结构。
Syntactic trees do have one advantage over phrase structure rules. They make visually obvious the hierarchical structure of sentences – how words are put together to make constituents, and how constituents are embedded inside one another to make larger and larger phrases, which in turn make sentences. In Figure 3.3, the D the and the N garbage form an NP. The resulting NP combined with the V ate forms a VP. This VP in turn combined with an NP (this raccoon) makes a sentence. This is the heart of sentence structure – precisely generating the complicated structure of sentences and phrases, a structure which you may not have even been aware of until you read this chapter.
让我们继续研究英语短语结构。到目前为止,我们在(9)中的短语结构规则提到了名词、动词、形容词和限定词的句法类别。现在我们将讨论介词的语法(in、at、through、behind)。考虑这个句子学生把小狗放在椅子上。我们有一个介词on ,它似乎与chair形成一个自然组。因此,我们可以假设on the chair是一个成分。我们可以使用成分替换检验来检验该假设。
Let’s continue our investigation of English phrase structure. So far, our phrase structure rules in (9) mention the syntactic categories noun, verb, adjective, and determiner. We will now discuss the syntax of prepositions (in, at, through, behind). Consider the sentence The student put the puppy on the chair. We have a preposition on that seems to form a natural group with the chair. We can thus hypothesize that on the chair is a constituent. We can test the hypothesis using the replacement test for constituency.
| (12) |
学生把小狗放在那里。 The student put the puppy there. |
由于“椅子上”可以用一个单词(那里)代替,如(12),所以它是一个成分。
Since on the chair can be replaced with a single word (there) as in (12), it is a constituent.
我们将这个新成分称为介词短语,缩写为 PP。我们知道它包含介词on和chair。chair对我们来说是可识别的 - 它是我们之前见过的成分,具体来说,它是一个限定词和一个名词,因此是一个 NP。介词短语内部结构的短语结构规则如下:
We will call the new constituent a prepositional phrase, abbreviated PP. We know that it contains the preposition on and also the chair. The chair is recognizable to us – it’s a constituent that we’ve seen before, specifically, a determiner and a noun and therefore an NP. The phrase structure rule for the internal structure of prepositional phrases is as follows:
| (13) |
PP → P NP PP → P NP |
换句话说,介词短语按顺序包含介词和名词短语。图 3.4显示了根据(13)中的新短语结构规则得到的 PP on the chair的树。请注意,任何类型的 NP 都可以跟在介词后面:仅一个名词(在校园里),一个限定词和一个名词(在椅子上),一个形容词和一个名词(对于小孩子),以及一个限定词、一个形容词和一个名词(在大桌子上)。
In other words, a prepositional phrase contains a preposition and a noun phrase, in that order. Figure 3.4 shows the tree for the PP on the chair according to our new phrase structure rule in (13). Note that any kind of NP can follow a preposition: just a noun (on campus), a determiner and a noun (on the chair), an adjective and a noun (for small children), and a determiner, and adjective and a noun (on the large table).
现在我们已经确定了 PP 的内部结构,我们可以询问它在句子中出现的位置。再次考虑我们的起始句子:学生把小狗放在椅子上。PP 位于句子的最后,但我们需要更多数据来确定其在结构中的确切位置。具体来说,不清楚 PP 是否是 VP 成分的一部分,即通过分支连接到 VP(我们称之为选项 1),或者它是否通过分支连接到 S 并与 VP 成分分开(我们称之为选项 2)。请参见图 3.5中的树,其中显示了选项 1(PP 在 VP 下),图 3.6中的树显示选项 2(PP 在 S 下)。现在我们有两个关于 PP 如何融入句子的相互竞争的分析。我们如何在这两个选项之间做出选择?
Now that we’ve determined the internal structure of the PP, we can ask about where it appears in a sentence. Consider again our starting sentence: The student put the puppy on the chair. The PP comes last in the sentence, but we need more data to determine its exact position in the structure. Specifically, it is not clear whether the PP is part of the VP constituent, i.e. connected to VP via a branch (let’s call this option 1) or whether it is connected to S with a branch and separate from the VP constituent (let’s call this option 2). See Figure 3.5 for a tree showing option 1 (PP as under the VP) and Figure 3.6 for a tree showing option 2 (PP as under the S). We now have two competing analyses of how PPs fit into sentences. How can we decide between these two options?
事实上,我们可以使用替换测试。在选项 1 中,PP 是 VP 成分的一部分。在选项 2 中,它不是。因此,选项 1 预测当我们用单个单词替换 VP 时,我们也可以替换 PP,因为它是 VP 的一部分。选项 2 没有做出这个预测。考虑(14)。
In fact, we can use the replacement test. In option 1, the PP is part of the VP constituent. In option 2, it is not. Therefore, option 1 predicts that when we replace a VP with a single word, we can also replace the PP since it is part of the VP. Option 2 does not make this prediction. Consider (14).
| (14) |
学生把小狗放在椅子上,老师也把小狗放在椅子上。 The student put the puppy on the chair, and so did the teacher. |
在(14)中,可以理解老师也把小狗放在了椅子上。因此,PP on the chair是被so替换的成分的一部分,并且它必须是 VP 成分的一部分。由此可见,选项 1 一定是在(12)的层次结构中表示介词短语的正确方法。图 3.5中的树是句子The student put the puppy on the chair 的正确结构,其中 PP 位于 VP 节点下方 。
In (14), it is understood that the teacher also put the puppy on the chair. Therefore, the PP on the chair is part of the constituent replaced by so, and it must be part of the VP constituent. It follows that option 1 must be the right way to represent the prepositional phrase in the hierarchical structure of (12). The tree in Figure 3.5, where the PP is underneath the VP node, is the correct structure for the sentence The student put the puppy on the chair.
在本节中,我们不仅研究了新的句法类别(介词)的句法,还了解了句法论证的工作原理。我们对句子中介词短语的结构有两种相互竞争的假设,并使用一个诊断来区分它们選舉。
In this section, we have not only investigated the syntax of a new syntactic category (prepositions), but we have also seen how syntactic argumentation works. We had two competing hypotheses for the structure of prepositional phrases within a sentence, and we distinguished them using a diagnostic for constituency.
我们将要处理的下一个句法类别是形容词(黄色、大、圆形、法语等)。似乎可以合理地假设,与其他词汇类别一样,形容词本身也可以形成一个短语:形容词短语 (AP)。
The next syntactic category that we will deal with is adjectives (yellow, big, round, French, etc.). It seems reasonable to assume that, like the other lexical categories, adjectives form a phrase unto themselves: adjective phrases (APs).
| (15) |
美联社→ A AP → A |
鉴于形容词可以与相关词(如very yellow或quite round)一起出现,情况尤其如此 。这些词似乎与形容词搭配使用,即构成形容词短语的一部分。练习 3.4要求您确定very和quite的句法类别,并修改(15)中 AP 的短语结构规则以包括它们。现在,让我们修改 NP 规则以反映形容词是它们自己的短语(即 AP)这一事实。
This is particularly true given that adjectives can appear with associated words like very and quite as in very yellow or quite round. These words seem to go together with the adjective, that is, form a part of the Adjective Phrase. Exercise 3.4 asks you to determine the syntactic category of very and quite, and to revise the phrase structure rule for APs in (15) to include them. For now, let’s just modify the NP rule to reflect the fact that adjectives are their own phrases, that is, APs.
| (16) |
NP → (D) (AP) N NP → (D) (AP) N |
图 3.7显示了使用(15)和(16)中的新/修订的短语结构规则的NP a small possum的树。
Figure 3.7 shows the tree for the NP a small possum using the new/revised phrase structure rules in (15) and (16).
我们应该如何处理限定词?它们如何符合我们刚刚概述的规则?自 20 世纪 80 年代中期以来,大多数语言学家都假设存在限定词短语(DP)(由于我们在此没有篇幅讨论的原因),并且它们由限定词和名词短语组成。
What should we do about determiners? How do they fit into the rules we just sketched? Since the mid 1980s, most linguists have assumed that there are Determiner Phrases (DPs) (for reasons we don’t have space to go into here) and that they consist of a determiner followed by an NP.
| (17) |
DP → D NP DP → D NP |
这就要求我们修改我们的NP规则,即从中去掉限定词。修改后的NP规则见(18)。
This requires us to revise our NP rule, namely, to remove the determiner from it. The revised NP rule is in (18).
| (18) |
名词→ (AP) 名词 NP → (AP) N |
考虑图 3.8中的鼠标树。
Consider the tree for the mouse in Figure 3.8.
首先应用(17)中的规则,得到限定词the和一个 NP。然后应用(18)中的规则,在 NP 下添加一个分支,得到 N mouse 。举一个更复杂的例子,考虑图 3.9中NP the small mouse的树。再次首先应用(17)中的规则,得到 D the和一个 NP。根据(18)中的规则,我们知道 NP 可以包含 AP 和 N。这里的 N 是mouse,而 AP 包含 A small (遵循(15)中的规则)。
The rule in (17) applies first, yielding the determiner the and an NP. Then the rule in (18) applies, adding a branch under the NP leading to the N mouse.To take a more complicated example, consider the tree in Figure 3.9 for the NP the small mouse. The rule in (17) again applies first, yielding the D the and an NP. We know that an NP can contain an AP and an N from the rule in (18). The N here is mouse, and the AP contains the A small (following the rule in (15)).
以这种方式将 DP 添加到语法中是一个比看起来更激进的举措。DP 现在是大多数我们以前称为 NP 的成分的“最高级别”。 例如, (2)中的可爱的小狗和暴躁的猫在这个新规则系统下就是 DP——否则就没有其他方式可以有限定词了。考虑到这一点,我们最终的短语结构规则列表如下。
Adding DPs to the grammar in this way is a more radical step than it may seem. DP is now the “topmost level” of most of the constituents that we previously called NPs. The adorable puppy and a cranky cat from (2), for example, are DPs under this new rule system – there is just no other way to have a determiner otherwise. Keeping this in mind, our final list of phrase structure rules is below.
| (19) |
句子→ DP VP Sentence → DP VP VP → V (DP) (PP) VP → V (DP) (PP) 点→点 DP PP → P DP DP → D NP DP → D NP 名词→ (AP) 名词 NP → (AP) N 美联社→ A AP → A |
本章这一部分的讨论旨在让您了解句法的方法,就好像英语是一种完全未经研究的语言一样。我们研究了它的单词和句子,发现了它的主要成分以及成分的排序方式。我们开发了一套短语结构规则来捕捉我们发现的关于成分和排序的概括。
The discussion in this section of the chapter has been intended to give you a sense of the methodology of syntax, as if English were a totally unstudied language. We have examined its words and its sentences, and discovered its main constituents and how the constituents are ordered. We have developed a set of phrase structure rules to capture the generalizations about constituency and ordering that we have found.
然而,句法学家当然已经研究英语(和许多其他语言)很多年了。下一节将带您领略当前的短语结构方法:投影。
However, syntacticians have of course been working on English (and many other languages) for many years now. The next section gives you a taste of the current approach to phrase structure: projection.
本节将介绍现代句法理论的基础知识。讨论相当高层次,但它与上一节的讨论有联系。本节介绍了一种构建句法树的新方法(自下而上),以及句法树中特定位置的几个新术语(说明词和补语)。最后,我们的功能类别库将增加两个新类别(词形变化和补语)。
In this section, the basics of modern syntactic theory are laid out. The discussion is fairly high-level, but it connects back to the discussion in the previous section. The section introduces a new way of building syntactic trees (from the bottom up) as well as several new terms for specific positions in syntactic trees (specifier and complement). Finally, our stock of functional categories will be enriched with two new categories (inflection and complementizer).
我们非正式地讨论了句法树,好像它们遵循“自上而下”的短语结构规则。然而,目前的语法研究假设句法树是通过一系列特定的结构构建操作“自下而上”构建的。要从自下而上的角度构建短语和句子,我们从句法类别本身开始——限定词、名词、形容词等。然后,这些类别投射出同一类别的短语(例如,名词投射出名词短语;图 3.10)。这是现代短语结构的基本操作之一。从投影的角度来看,你可以把句法类别看作一种种子,把它的投影看作它发出的茎。与自上而下的方法相比,投影确实有一定的优势——主要是它使语法变得更简单,语言学的总体目标之一就是让我们的分析尽可能的简单和优雅。
We have informally discussed syntactic trees as if they follow phrase structure rules from the “top down.” However, current research on grammar assumes that syntactic trees are constructed “bottom-up” through a series of specific structure-building operations. To build phrases and sentences from a bottom-up perspective, we start with the syntactic categories themselves – determiners, nouns, adjectives, etc. The categories then project phrases of the same category (for example, a noun projects an NP; Figure 3.10). This is one of the basic operations in modern phrase structure. From a projection perspective, you can think of a syntactic category as a kind of seed and its projection as a stalk that it sends out. Projection does have certain advantages over a top-down approach – primarily, it makes the grammar simpler, and one of the overall goals of linguistics is to have our analyses be as simple and elegant as possible.
让我们从简单句子“那些孩子想要一只小狗”开始,看看投影方法是如何工作的。语法首先从 词典中选择名词children和puppy ,然后让它们投影 NP,如图 3.10所示。
Let’s start with the simple sentence Those children want a puppy and see how a projection approach works. The grammar starts by selecting the nouns children and puppy from the lexicon and letting them project NPs, as in Figure 3.10.
类似地,限定词those和a投射出 DP,如图3.11所示。这些限定词中的每一个不仅投射出其自身类别(DP)的短语节点,而且还分支出另一个节点,称为其补语,需要完成的短语。限定词的补语是 NP。
Similarly, the determiners those and a project DPs, as in Figure 3.11. Each of these determiners not only projects a phrasal node of its own category (a DP), but also branches out to another node called its complement, the phrase it needs to be complete. The complement of a determiner is an NP.
类似的例子是动词want的投射,如图 3.12所示。Want是一个及物动词,要求后面跟直接宾语,因此它投射出 VP,但也会分支到另一个节点,用于直接宾语,即它的补语。Want 接受DP 直接宾语,因此它的补语是DP。
A similar case is the projection from the verb want, which is shown in Figure 3.12. Want is a transitive verb that requires a direct object to come after it, so it projects a VP but also branches out to another node for the direct object, its complement. Want takes a DP direct object, so its complement is a DP.
一旦限定词和动词的补语节点被投射出来,这些类别就必须与它们所需类型的短语组合在一起。要做到这一点,语法必须有一个组合短语的机制。这是通过将一个短语与另一个短语合并来实现的。合并是第二种主要的结构构建操作。
Once the complement nodes of the determiners and the verb are projected, these categories must be combined with a phrase of the type they need. To do that, the grammar must have a mechanism that combines phrases. This is done by merging one phrase with another. Merger is the second main type of structure-building operation.
我们示例中的每个限定词(那些和a)都投射出一个 DP,并且每个 DP 都需要一个 NP 作为其补语。语法已经投射了图 3.10中的两个 NP和图 3.11中的两个 DP 。它所要做的就是将两个 NP 合并到两个 DP 中,这样 DP 就完整了。其工作原理如图 3.13所示。
Each of the determiners in our example – those and a – projects a DP, and each of these DPs needs an NP as its complement. The grammar has already projected the two NPs, in Figure 3.10, and the two DPs, in Figure 3.11. All it has to do is merge the two NPs into the two DPs, and the DPs will be complete. The way this works is illustrated in Figure 3.13.
请注意,在合并开始时,有两个 NP 节点,但之后只有一个 NP。在合并中,两个节点混合在一起形成一个合并节点。回想一下图 3.12中的动词短语,其头部需要一个DP补语,现在可以将其合并到VP中,如图3.14所示。
Notice that at the beginning of a merger, there are two NP nodes, but only one NP afterwards. In a merger, the two nodes blend together to form one merged node. Recall that in Figure 3.12, the verb phrase whose head is want needed a DP complement, which can now be merged into the VP as illustrated in Figure 3.14.
现在我们有了图 3.13中的第一个短语(那些孩子)和图 3.14中的短语(想要一只小狗),这是语法通过合并创建的。需要一个新的功能类别来将它们组合在一起。之前,我们使用 Sentence 节点将这两个短语组合在一起(回想一下规则:Sentence → DP VP)。但是,“Sentence”不是名词、限定词或动词等英语句法类别,并且先前的语言学研究认为,为了尽可能简单,语法应该只使用句法类别。
We now have the first phrase in Figure 3.13 (those children) and the phrase in Figure 3.14 (want a puppy) which the grammar has created by merger. A new functional category is needed to put them together. Previously, we used the Sentence node to put together these two phrases (recall the rule: Sentence → DP VP). However, “Sentence” is not a syntactic category of English like noun, determiner, or verb, and previous linguistic research has argued that, to be maximally simple, the grammar should only use syntactic categories.
事实上,有一个功能类别可以替代句子节点。这个类别称为词形变化,负责句子的时态(以及其他职责)。请考虑下面的数据。
In fact, there is a functional category available to replace the Sentence node. This category, called inflection, is responsible for the tense of the sentence (among other duties). Consider the data below.
| (20) |
|
(20a)不符合语法,但(20b)和(20c)符合语法。 (20a)和( 20b, c )的区别在于词形变化,或者更具体地说,是时态。有一个现在时(20b)中的run后缀为-s , (20c)中的过去时后缀为 -ed。因此,词形变化使句子成为句子,将短语连接成一个命题,因此它是句子节点的有效替代。因此,我们假设存在一个词形变化短语(IP),它由现在时和过去时以及can或may等情态动词投射而来(尝试将can添加到(20a)中,它具有与添加时态后缀相同的改善效果),如图3.15所示。
(20a) is ungrammatical, but (20b) and (20c) are grammatical. The difference between (20a) and (20b,c) is inflection, or more specifically, tense. There is a present-tense suffix -s on run in (20b) and a past-tense suffix -ed in (20c). Inflection is thus what makes a sentence a sentence – what connects phrases into one proposition – so it is a valid replacement for the sentence node. Therefore, we will assume there is an Inflection Phrase (IP) projected from present and past tense, as well as from modals like can or may (try adding can to (20a) – it has much the same ameliorating effect as adding a tense suffix), as in Figure 3.15.
词形变化在句子结构中的作用与我们迄今为止预测的短语的作用有些不同。词形变化短语为句子提供了中心“支架”,更有意义的句子结构会附加词汇类别短语。在我们一直在研究的句子(那些孩子想要一只小狗)中,词形变化的首部不是您可以听到的单词,而是抽象元素 PRES(现在时;有时现在时实现为-s,有时它是纯粹抽象的)。
The role of inflection in the structure of sentences is somewhat different from the role of the phrases we have projected so far. Inflection phrases provide the central “scaffolding” for a sentence, a structure to which the more meaningful lexical category phrases will be attached. In the sentence we have been working with (Those children want a puppy), the head of the inflection is not a word you can hear, but the abstract element PRES (present tense; sometimes present tense is realized as -s and sometimes it is purely abstract).
即使对于功能类别来说,屈折也是特殊的。像动词和介词一样,它投射出补语分支;要完整,它必须附加动词短语。但屈折短语也很不寻常,因为它们还投射出说明符位置。说明符需要具有特定配置的额外结构级别。最低类别 (I) 和 IP 之间有一个中间节点。在现代语言理论中,这个中间节点称为 I′,发音为“I-bar”。补语动词短语从 I′ 分支,说明符从较高的 IP 向相反方向分支。这个上层结构被称为“说明符”,其原因在早期版本的句法理论中是可以解释的,但现在只是一个传统的技术术语。词形变化短语的说明符是句子的主语,这里是限定词短语。词形变化短语通常以限定词短语作为说明词,尽管其他短语也是可能的。
Even for a functional category, inflection is special. Like verbs and prepositions, it projects a complement branch; to be complete it has to have a verb phrase attached. But inflection phrases are also unusual because they also project a specifier position. A specifier requires an extra level of structure with a particular configuration. There is an intermediate node between the lowest category (I) and the IP. In modern linguistic theory this intermediate node is called I′, pronounced “I-bar.” The complement verb phrase branches from I′ and the specifier branches in the opposite direction from the higher IP. This upper piece of structure is called a “specifier” for a reason that was explainable in earlier versions of syntactic theory, but now is simply a conventional technical term. The specifier of an inflection phrase is the subject of the sentence, here a determiner phrase. Inflection phrases typically have determiner phrases as their specifiers, although other phrases are possible.
图 3.16显示了将 DP 和 VP 与 IP 连接起来后的结构。请注意,起初从 IP 投射出来的 DP 和 VP 补语没有内容。为了给它们赋予内容,将包含这些子句的DP与 IP 说明符位置上的 DP 合并(这是我们的第一个说明符合并示例),并将包含want a puppy 的VP 与 VP 合并。词形变化短语将 DP 和 VP 的内容组合并关联起来。结果显示在图 3.16。
The structure resulting from joining DP and VP with IP is shown in Figure 3.16. Notice that at first the DP and VP complements projected from IP have no content. To give them content, the DP containing those children is merged with the DP in the specifier position of IP (this is our first example of specifier merger) and the VP containing want a puppy is merged with the VP. The Inflection Phrase combines and relates the content of the DP and the VP. The result is shown in Figure 3.16.
语法生成句子的过程已基本完成。必须有一种机制将现在时(PRES)附加到动词上。在这个句子中,PRES是听不见的,所以你听不出它是否附加了。但如果我们的句子是My child wants a puppy,我们就可以在后缀 - s中看到现在时标记。将动词和它们的时态结合起来的机制原来是对于句法理论来说,这出人意料地复杂,因此我们在这里只说明有一种方法可以让时态屈折出现在它们所属的位置。
The generation of the sentence by the grammar is almost complete. There has to be a mechanism to get the present tense (PRES) attached to the verb. In this sentence, PRES is not audible so you can’t hear whether it attached or not. But if our sentence had been My child wants a puppy, we could have seen the present-tense marker in the suffix -s. The mechanism that combines verbs and their tense turned out to be surprisingly complicated for syntactic theory, so we’ll just state here that there is a way to get tense inflections where they belong.
我们的语法必须再有一个功能类别,即补语。补语在(21)中以粗体显示。
Our grammar must have one more functional category, the complementizer. The complementizers are bolded in (21).
| (21) |
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补语成分允许句子嵌入其他句子中。例如,在(21a)这样的句子中,句子those children want a puppy嵌入到更高的句子中,作为动词heard的补语。补语短语(CP) 也是理解疑问句和关系从句结构所必需的(例如进来的男人很生气),以及间接引语(例如他说那些孩子想要一只小狗)。补语短语将词形变化短语作为补语。CP 的投影看起来像图 3.17。
Complementizers allow sentences to be embedded in other sentences. For example, in a sentence like (21a), the sentence those children want a puppy is embedded in a higher sentence as the complement of the verb heard. Complementizer Phrases (CPs) also are necessary to understand the structure of questions and relative clauses (e.g. The man who came in was angry), as well as indirect quotations (e.g. He said that those children want a puppy). Complementizers take inflection phrases as complements. The projection of a CP looks like Figure 3.17.
在“我听说那些孩子想要一只小狗——”与“那些孩子想要一只小狗”这个 IP 合并后,CP 将如图3.18所示。
In a sentence like I heard that those children want a puppy – following merger of the IP those children want a puppy – the CP would look like Figure 3.18.
我们已经介绍了几个我们称之为功能性的类别。词形变化短语的功能性很容易看出,因为它们充当句子的“支架结构”,为主语限定词短语和主要动词短语提供词形变化和位置。同样,补语短语具有为嵌入子句提供结构的功能。但是限定词短语呢?从我们给出的例子来看,限定词似乎就像一个 词汇类别,从具有一些语义的中心词投射出一个短语和一个补语分支内容。
We have introduced several categories that we have called functional. The functional nature of Inflection Phrases is easy to see, since they serve as the “scaffold structure” for sentences, holding the inflection and the positions for the subject Determiner Phrase and the main Verb Phrase. Similarly Complementizer Phrases have the function of providing the structure for embedded clauses. But what about Determiner Phrases? From the examples we have shown, determiner seems just like a lexical category, projecting a phrase and a complement branch from a head with some semantic content.
限定词短语的一个明显功能性职责是为所有格结构提供支撑,例如The cowboy's hat 。此所有格结构是从不寻常的限定词(拼写为's 的所有格词素)投射而来的 DP 。所有格限定词像往常一样投射出 NP 补语,这次它还投射出说明符(就像词形变化短语一样)。投射看起来像 这:
One clearly functional duty of Determiner Phrases is to provide the scaffolding for possessive constructions, like The cowboy’s hat. This possessive construction is a DP projected from an unusual determiner, the possessive morpheme spelled ’s. The possessive determiner projects an NP complement, as usual, and this time it also projects a specifier (like inflection phrases do). The projection looks like this:
如你所见,这个结构与典型的 IP 结构非常相似。当 DP牛仔被合并到说明符位置,NP帽子被合并到补语位置时,我们得到:
As you can see, this structure looks very similar to a typical IP structure. When the DP The cowboy is merged into the specifier position and the NP hat into the complement position, we get:
到目前为止,我们已经了解了两种构建短语的方法:投影和合并。我们已经了解了单词如何投影同一类别的短语,以及合并如何通过将一个短语放入另一个短语的补语或说明语中来连接短语。也可以合并不是补语或说明语的短语。这称为附加,它会将修饰语添加到短语中。主语、补语和修饰语构成了短语的核心含义,而修饰语则增加了额外的描述。到目前为止,我们遇到的修饰语包括形容词(small、yellow、cute)和副词(honestly、慢慢地,不知疲倦地)。由于连接短语不同于中心词、补语和说明词,连接词通过扩展主短语的短语节点来创建合并的场所。
There are two methods for building phrases that we have seen thus far: projection and merger. We have seen how words project a phrase of their same category, and how merger joins phrases by placing one phrase into the complement or specifier of another phrase. It is also possible to merge phrases that are not complements or specifiers. This is called adjunction and it adds modifiers to phrases. Heads, complements, and specifiers make up the core meaning of a phrase, while modifiers add extra description. Modifiers that we have encountered thus far include adjectives (small, yellow, adorable) and adverbs (honestly, slowly, tirelessly). Since adjoined phrases are different from heads, complements, and specifiers, adjunction creates a site for merger by extending the phrasal node of the host phrase.
图 3.19 – 3.21 从自下而上的角度说明了附加结构。假设我们想在例句的主语中添加一个形容词,使其变成:那些小孩子想要一只小狗。我们会将形容词短语little附加到名词短语children 上。首先,语法会从形容词 little投射出一个新的形容词短语 (AP) ,例如图 3.19。
Figures 3.19–3.21 illustrate adjunction from a bottom-up point of view. Suppose we want to add an adjective to the subject of our example sentence so that it reads: Those little children want a puppy. We would adjoin the adjective phrase little to the noun phrase children. First, the grammar would project a new adjective phrase (AP) from the adjective little, as in Figure 3.19.
然后,语法会创建图 3.20中圈出的“屋顶形”结构,以扩展 NP children。
The grammar then would create the “roof-shaped” structure circled in Figure 3.20 that extends the NP children.
The new AP would be merged into this new structure. This is shown in Figure 3.21.
现在假设我们在句子中添加一个副词,这样句子就是:那些小孩子非常想要一只小狗。副词badly会投射出副词短语 (AdvP),然后语法会使用相同的机制将其与动词短语want a puppy合并。图 3.22和3.23显示了副词短语badly与动词短语want a puppy 的合并。
Now suppose we add an adverb to our sentence so that it reads: Those little children want a puppy badly. The adverb badly would project an adverb phrase (AdvP), which the grammar would then merge with the verb phrase want a puppy, using the same mechanism. Figures 3.22 and 3.23 show the merger of the adverb phrase badly with the VP want a puppy.
构建“那些小孩子非常想要一只小狗”的其余结构将按以下方式进行。首先,图 3.21中的 NP 将与以那些为首的 DP 的补语分支合并,如图 3.13所示,以创建 DP “那些小孩子” 。生成的 DP 和图 3.23中的 VP “非常想要一只小狗”将像前面一样合并到 IP 中,以创建整个句子(IP)。
Building the rest of the structure for Those little children want a puppy badly would proceed in the following way. First the NP in Figure 3.21 would be merged with the complement branch of the DP headed by those, as in Figure 3.13, to create the DP those little children. The resulting DP and the VP in Figure 3.23, want a puppy badly, would be merged into IP as before to create the whole sentence (IP).
在本节中,我们介绍了几个如何使用投影、合并和附加从下向上构建树的示例。您已经简要了解了当前句法工作中常见的句法概念和类别,包括补语、说明符、词形变化和词形变化短语,以及补语和补语 短语。
In this section, we have run through several examples of how to build trees from the bottom up, using projection, merger, and adjunction. You have seen in brief the syntactic concepts and categories that are common in current syntactic work, including complements, specifiers, inflection and Inflection Phrases, and complementizers and Complementizer Phrases.
尽管人类的大脑能够进行复杂的过程,但它是有限的。人类大脑中的细胞数量有限,因此这些细胞之间的连接数量有限(尽管很大)。由于语法是人类大脑的一部分,因此语法也必须是有限的。但一个人有能力理解和产生无限数量的句子。人们总是说和听全新的或新颖的句子。从上一章中选取任何句子。虽然你从未如果你以前听过、读过或说过这种形式,你就能理解它的意思。有限的语法怎么能有无限的生成和理解句子的能力呢?
Although capable of complex processes, human beings’ brains are finite. There are a limited number of cells in the human brain, and therefore a limited (though large) number of connections between those cells. Since grammars are part of people’s brains, grammars must be finite, too. But an individual human being has the capacity to understand and produce an infinite number of sentences. People say and hear completely new, or novel, sentences all the time. Take any sentence from the last chapter. Although you had never heard it, read it, or said it before in just that form, you were able to understand what it means. How can a finite grammar have an infinite capacity for producing and understanding sentences?
无论我们在哪里长大,无论我们是在英语社区还是在东京或乌兰巴托长大,每种语言的使用者的语法中都有递归手段- 即相同的语法过程可以应用多次 - 使他们能够写出长度不定的句子。
Regardless of where we were raised and whether we grew up in some English-speaking community or in Tokyo or Ulan Bator, speakers of every language have recursive devices – means by which the same grammatical processes can apply more than once – in their grammars that make it possible for them to produce sentences of indefinite length.
一种这样的递归设备是形容词连接规则。我们可以通过重复连接而不受原则限制地重复插入形容词。你可以很容易地想象有人说,她爱上了这个聪明的男人。这是通过将形容词intelligent连接到名词短语guy来实现的。但是,还可以做得更多;你可以说,她爱上了这个聪明、英俊、体贴、浪漫、周到、可爱的男人,只需连接更多的形容词即可。语法不会阻止你继续说下去,因为形容词连接规则是递归的。
One such recursive device is the rule for adjoining adjectives. We can insert adjectives repeatedly with no principled limit by repeated adjunction. You can easily imagine someone saying, She fell in love with this intelligent guy. This is accomplished by adjoining the adjective intelligent to the noun phrase guy. But it would be possible to go a lot beyond that; you could say, She fell in love with this intelligent, handsome, considerate, romantic, thoughtful, adorable guy simply by adjoining more adjectives. The grammar would not prevent you from going on and on, because the rule for adjoining adjectives is recursive.
更复杂的递归设备允许将任何句子放在另一个句子的更大框架中。从你认为可以想象的最长的句子开始;你可以通过在它前面加上“他说...”来使它更长。如果你的原句是“纽约的女人穿着黑色连衣裙”,那么它可以被加长为“他说纽约的女人穿着黑色连衣裙”。你可以再次使用相同的结构来加长该句子。即使你已经添加了“他说”,你也可以添加类似的内容:她说他说纽约的女人穿着黑色连衣裙。你可以无限期地继续重构你的发展句子:比尔知道吉尔认为汤姆说过... 你可能会累,但是你的语法永远不会限制句子的长度。
A more complex recursive device allows any sentence to be placed in the larger frame of another sentence. Start with what you think is the longest sentence you can imagine; you can make it longer simply by putting He said that… in front of it. If your original sentence was The woman in New York wore a black dress, it would be lengthened to He said that the woman in New York wore a black dress. You could lengthen that sentence by using the same structure again. Even if you have already added He said that, you could add something similar: She said that he said that the woman in New York wore a black dress. You could keep reframing your developing sentence indefinitely: Bill knew that Jill thought that Tom said that… You might get tired, but your grammar would never limit the length of your sentence.
另一种嵌入方式是使用关系从句。也许你还记得儿歌《杰克建造的房子》:
Another kind of embedding involves the use of relative clauses. Maybe you remember the children’s song, “The House that Jack Built”:
这是杰克建造的房子。这是杰克建造的房子里的奶酪。这是那只啃食了杰克所建房子里的奶酪的老鼠。
This is the house that Jack built.This is the cheese that lay in the house that Jack built.This is the mouse that nibbled the cheese that lay in the house that Jack built.
如果你有耐心并且活得足够长,你可以无限地把关系从句串在一起:这是那头牛,它踢了一条狗,这条狗追赶一只猫,这只猫杀死了一只老鼠,这只老鼠抓住了一只老鼠,这只老鼠啃食了杰克建造的房子里的奶酪。
If you had the patience and lived long enough, you could string relative clauses together indefinitely: This is the cow that kicked the dog that chased the cat that killed the rat that caught the mouse that nibbled the cheese that lay in the house that Jack built.
所有语言中都存在的另一种递归手法是并列。并列将两个(或更多)句子(或短语或单词)以平等的方式连接在一起,使用并列连词,如and、but、and or:你可以尝试,也可以放弃。句子也可以无限并列:Rick 去看电影,Ellen 去商店,Stuart 工作,但 Mike 睡觉,Sue 看书……
Another recursive device found in all languages is coordination. Coordination links two (or more) sentences (or phrases, or words) together on equal terms, using coordinating conjunctions like and, but, and or: You can try or you can give up. Sentences can be coordinated indefinitely as well: Rick went to a movie, and Ellen went to the store, and Stuart worked, but Mike slept and Sue read a book…
因为语法有递归机制,允许表达式无限长,所以各种递归机制可以组合起来产生无限多种句子:这是苏知道的杰克建造的房子,这是比尔看到的老鼠在吃美味可口的黄色奶酪……由于递归是语法不可或缺的一部分,因此没有人可以通过记住该语言的所有句子来学习语言。人类如何能够学习它们一定有其他解释。
Because grammars have recursive devices which permit expressions to be indefinitely long, the various recursive devices can be combined to produce an infinite variety of sentences: This is the house that Sue knew that Jack built and this is the mouse that Bill saw eating the savory, delicious, yellow, gourmet cheese… Since recursion is an integral part of the grammar, it follows that no one can learn a language by memorizing all the sentences of that language. There must be some other explanation for how human beings are able to learn them.
到目前为止,我们已经在本章中展示了句子结构是如何从句法类别中投射出来的,以及句子结构是如何在句法树中表示出来的。除了构建句子结构之外,语法还可以移动短语和从句,将它们从原始位置复制,并将它们合并到其他地方。在问题What would the puppy like?中,单词what被理解为like的直接宾语。在英语中,动词的直接宾语跟在动词后面(The puppy likes bacon),但what出现在句子的最前面。因此,语言学家假设 what被投射并合并到like的右侧,但随后移动到句子中的较高位置(请注意,情态动词也位于句子的主语之前,而不像在陈述中它位于主语之后)。句子What would the puppy like?的起始状态显示在(22)中的箭头左侧,终点显示在箭头右侧
Thus far in the chapter, we have shown how sentence structure is projected from syntactic categories, and how it is represented in syntactic trees. Besides building sentence structure, though, the grammar can also move phrases and clauses around, copying them from their original position, and merging them somewhere else. In the question What would the puppy like?, the word what is understood to be the direct object of like. Direct objects of verbs follow the verb in English (The puppy likes bacon), but what appears at the front of the sentence. Linguists have hypothesized, therefore, that what is projected and merged to the right of like, but then moves to a higher position in the sentence (note that the modal would also comes before the subject of the sentence, unlike in a statement where it would come after the subject). The starting state of the sentence What would the puppy like? is shown to the left of the arrow in (22), and the endpoint to the right of the arrow
| (22) |
小狗会喜欢什么→小狗会喜欢什么 The puppy would like what → What would the puppy like |
这些问题通常被称为wh 疑问句,因为它们涉及到wh 词的移动,如what、when、where、who、which等。语法还可以删除部分结构。在句子The puppy likes tuna and the cat does, too 中,我们知道猫也喜欢金枪鱼,但动词短语likes tuna已从第二句中删除并替换为does, too。句法成分的移动被认为需要两个步骤 - 将成分复制到句子中的新位置并删除原始成分 - 因为语法的行为就像在成分移动后留下了某些东西(“痕迹”)。例如,在(22)中, what作为动词like的直接宾语的作用可以从其作为like的补语的原始位置“恢复” 。删除和移动都受到相当微妙的限制。英语使用者“知道”删除和移动的限制,就像虚构的机器人“知道”从未教过的篮球规则一样。观看篮球比赛和机器人的内部编程相结合,使它能够按照规则进行比赛。同样,英语使用者在童年时期接触英语的经历,加上他们继承的语言基因型,使他们能够展示对语言的了解,包括其未教过的原则。
These questions are often referred to as wh-questions because they involve movement of wh-words like what, when, where, who, which, etc. The grammar can also delete portions of the structure. In the sentence The puppy likes tuna and the cat does, too, we understand that the cat also likes tuna, but the verb phrase likes tuna has been deleted from the second clause and replaced by does, too. Movement of a syntactic constituent is theorized to take two steps – copying the constituent to a new position in the sentence and deleting the original constituent – because grammar behaves as if something (a “trace”) is left behind after a constituent has been moved. For example, in (22) the role of what as direct object of the verb like is “recoverable” from its original position as the complement of like. Deletion and movement are both restricted in quite subtle ways. English speakers “know” the restrictions on deletion and movement in a way analogous to the fictitious robot who “knew” rules of basketball that it had never been taught. The combination of watching basketball and the robot’s internal programming made it possible for it to play the game by the rules. In the same way, English speakers’ experience with English in childhood, combined with the linguistic genotype that they have inherited, makes it possible for them to show knowledge of the language, including its untaught principles.
到目前为止,我们已经表示了短语结构使用树形图,这种图在图形上有助于显示单词和短语之间的层次关系,但占用大量空间。语言学家通常使用一种称为标记括号的线性格式来表示句子:
So far, we have represented phrasal structure using tree diagrams, which are graphically useful for showing the hierarchical relationships between words and phrases, but take up a lot of space. Linguists often use a linear format, called a labeled bracketing, to represent sentences:
[ IP [ DP那些孩子][ VP想要 [ DP一只小狗]]]
[IP[DP those children][VP want [DP a puppy]]]
在这种格式中,括号将节点下方的所有内容括起来,并且括号的标签与树中的节点相同。最外层括号内的整个句子是 IP。IP 内有一个 DP(那些孩子),后跟 VP(想要一只小狗)。动词短语由want(我们选择不明确标记)和另一个 DP(一只小狗)组成。当他们使用这种格式时,语言学家会忽略每个组成短语的大部分内部结构,除非它与特定分析相关。
In this format, brackets surround everything underneath a node, and the bracket is labeled with the same label that a node in a tree would have. The entire sentence, within the outermost brackets, is an IP. Within the IP there is a DP (those children) followed by a VP (want a puppy). The verb phrase consists of want, which we have chosen not to label explicitly, and another DP (a puppy). When they use this format, linguists leave out much of the internal structure of each of the constituent phrases, unless it is relevant to a particular analysis.
让我们举一个例子。在英语中,像that 这样的补语是可选的,而荷兰语、法语、西班牙语、意大利语和其他语言中的对应词则必须有补语。因此,在英语家庭长大的孩子可能会听到(23a –c)的句子带有或不带有补语that。这些经历会让他们知道 that是可选的,因此他们会学习像(23d)这样的补语删除规则。
Let us take one example. In English, complementizers like that are optional, unlike equivalent words in Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, and other languages, where complementizers are required. So a child raised in an English-speaking home might hear the sentences of (23a–c) pronounced with or without the complementizer that. These experiences would show them that that is optional so they will learn a complementizer-deletion rule like (23d).
| (23) |
|
到目前为止,我们可以看到,孩子们学习母语的方式不同,这取决于他们接触到的输入。然而,孩子们也知道一些他们永远无法通过这种方式学到的关于他们语言的知识。事实上,that并不总是可选的;在(24)的上下文中它是必需的,其中零旁边的星号表示删除that会使句子不合语法。
So far, we can see that children learn different things about their native languages, depending on the input they are exposed to. However, children also know things about their language that they could never have learned in this way. In fact, that is not always optional; it is required in the contexts of (24), where the asterisk next to the zero means that deletion of that renders the sentence ungrammatical.
| (24) |
|
英语语法中的一些东西——因此也是英语使用者的大脑中的一些东西——要求在这类句子中使用补语that 。但是没有一个大人或小孩会说Kay left 对我们所有人来说都是显而易见的,所以没有人可以向孩子指出这是一个不符合语法的英语句子。这被称为负面证据,即关于语言中不存在的内容的信息。孩子们只会听到带有补语的句子(24),但他们不可能从所听到的内容中了解到补语在(24)中的上下文中不是可选的。学习英语的孩子们“知道” (24)中的情况是不可能的,但由于他们没有证据来学习这一点,所以这种知识一定来自于其他地方。一个直接的答案是,语言的心理器官——许多语言学家称之为普遍语法或 UG——一定发挥了某种作用。这一结论与科学家的结论相吻合,即机器人一定是被编程了篮球规则,因为它没有看到足够的证据来通过观看篮球比赛来学习这些规则遊戲。
Something in the English grammar – and therefore in the English speaker’s brain – requires the complementizer that in these kinds of sentences. But no adult or child ever says Kay left was obvious to all of us, so no one can point out to a child that this is an ungrammatical sentence in English. This is called negative evidence, information about what does not occur in a language. Children hear sentences like (24) only with complementizers, but they can’t possibly learn from what they hear that the complementizer is not optional in just the contexts in (24). Children acquiring English “know” that the cases in (24) are impossible, but since they don’t have evidence to learn this from, this knowledge must be coming from somewhere else. A straightforward answer is that the mental organ for language – which many linguists call Universal Grammar or UG – must be playing some role. This conclusion matches the scientist’s conclusion that the robot must have been programmed with basketball rules, because it hadn’t seen enough evidence to learn them by watching basketball games.
我们所呈现的事实似乎太过平常,无需解释。“当然你不能说‘凯离开了,这对我们所有人来说都是显而易见的’,”你可能会想,“任何人都能看出来。”但在艾萨克·牛顿的时代,每个人都知道苹果会掉下来,没有人认为这需要解释。牛顿通过问“为什么”推动了物理学领域的发展,并在历史上为自己赢得了一席之地。语言学家在问那个-deletion 的问题时也在做同样的事情。我们得到的结果与引力的发现一样令人惊讶,尽管它们还没有被广泛知晓。
The facts that we are presenting may seem too commonplace to require explanation. “Of course you can’t say ‘Kay left was obvious to all of us’,” you might think, “Anybody can see that.” But in Isaac Newton’s time, everybody knew that apples fall down, and nobody thought it was anything that needed to be explained. Newton advanced the field of physics and made a place for himself in history by asking “Why?” Linguists are doing the same thing when they ask questions about that-deletion. The results we get are surprising in the same way that the discovery of gravity was, though they are not yet as widely known.
补语删除的问题在于,在英语中,有些语境中可以删除that ,但在其他语境中不能。要了解原因,让我们详细考虑(23a) 。图 3.24显示了(23a)动词短语的树结构。(我们假设抽象词形变化PAST已成为动词leave的一部分,从而得到过去时形式left。said 也发生了同样的事情。)如果你仔细看图3.24,你会发现 [ CP ( that ) [ IP Kay left ]] 是动词短语的补语,并且直接与动词短语的词干said相邻。 (23)中的其他例子也同样如此,这些例子中的删除是可能的。
The problem of that complementizer deletion is that that can be deleted in English in some contexts, but not in others. To see why, let’s consider (23a) in detail. Figure 3.24 shows the tree structure of the verb phrase of (23a). (We’re assuming that the abstract inflection PAST has already become part of the verb leave giving the past-tense form left. The same thing has happened with said.) If you look carefully at Figure 3.24, you will see that [CP (that) [IP Kay left]] is the complement of the verb phrase, and also directly adjacent to the head of that verb phrase, said. The same is true of the other examples in (23), where that deletion is possible.
另一方面,在(24a)中,CP [ CP ( that ) [ IP Kay had left ]] 仍然是say的补语,但它不与say相邻;它与Chicago相邻(并且Chicago不是动词短语的中心词,包含Kay had left的 CP不是Chicago的补语)。在(24b)中,包含Ray is smart的 CP是省略但可理解的动词believe的补语,该动词不是显性的(e表示空),而在(24c)中,该小句是 nothing 的补语(它是句子的主语)。
In (24a), on the other hand, the CP [CP (that) [IP Kay had left]] is still the complement of say, but it is not adjacent to say; it is adjacent to Chicago (and Chicago is not the head of the verb phrase and the CP containing Kay had left is not the complement of Chicago). In (24b) the CP containing Ray is smart is the complement of the elided but understood verb believe, which is not overt (the e means empty), and in (24c), the clause is the complement of nothing (it’s the subject of the sentence).
通过并列(23)和(24)中的句子,语言学家可以推断出以下原则是普遍语法的一部分。
By juxtaposing sentences in (23) and (24), linguists can deduce that the following principle is part of Universal Grammar.
| (25) |
如果一种语言允许删除补语,那么只有在以下情况下才能删除它们:与一个外在的头词相邻,并且它们位于该头词的补语中。 If a language allows that complementizers to be deleted at all, they can be deleted only if they are adjacent to an overt head and they are in that head’s complement. |
有了这个原则,我们解决了这个特殊的刺激贫乏问题。学习英语的儿童知道可以删除补语 that ,因为他们听到某些类型的句子中可能会出现that,但不一定会出现。在其他类型的句子中,比如(24)中的句子,他们总是听到that ,从来没有听到过删除它的例子。但是,不能删除that的条件取决于一些非常微妙的语法属性,涉及诸如从句是某些可听单词的补语之类的概念,而儿童从未经历过这样的事情。既然孩子们对此很敏感,我们得出结论,他们“知道”这个原则已经。
With this principle, we solve this particular poverty-of-stimulus problem. Children learning English learn that the that complementizer can be deleted because they hear some kinds of sentences in which that may appear, but doesn’t have to. In other types of sentences, like the ones in (24), they always hear that, never examples of its deletion. But the conditions under which that cannot be deleted depend on some very subtle properties of grammar, involving notions like a clause being a complement of some audible word, and nothing like this is ever part of children’s experience. Since children are sensitive to it anyway, we conclude that they “know” this principle already.
还有许多其他情况,其中某些关于补语相邻性的原则也适用,包括“重”DP 移动。这适用于语法将长而复杂的 DP 从较短位置向右移动的情况。例如,虽然说“我在树枝上看见了一只鸟”很自然,但如果你想更完整地描述那只鸟,你可能会互换位置 — — “我在树枝上看见了一只最令人惊奇的、色彩缤纷的、长羽毛的鸟” — — 将长 DP 补语“锯”一直移到句子的右端。根据我们所介绍的方法,这意味着复制和移动“重”DP,然后删除复制的元素。在下面的例子中,DP 放在括号中,DP 的原始位置用删除线文本标注;还要注意,移动 DP 得到的句子用斜体书写。
There are a number of other instances in which some principle about adjacency to a complement is operative, including “heavy” DP movement. This applies when the grammar moves to the right a long, complicated DP from a position where it would occur if it were shorter. For example, while it would be natural to say I saw the bird on a twig, if you wanted to describe that bird more fully, you might switch things around – I saw on a twig the most amazing, multicolored, long-feathered bird – moving the long DP complement of saw all the way to the right end of the sentence. Under the approach we are presenting, that means copying and moving the “heavy” DP and then deleting the copied element. In the examples below, the DPs are in brackets, the original position of the DP is noted by struck-through text; note also that the sentence resulting from moving the DP is written in italics.
| (26) |
我把 [萨沙昨天打包的一小箱书] 送给了克里斯 [ 萨沙昨天打包的一小箱书 ] I gave [the small box of books that Sasha packed up yesterday] to Chris [the small box of books that Sasha packed up yesterday] 我把萨沙昨天打包好的一小箱书送给了克里斯。 I gave to Chris the small box of books that Sasha packed up yesterday. |
在(26) “沉重” DP中,Sasha 昨天打包的一小箱书是gave的补语,可以移到句末。但是,考虑一下(27)。
In (26) the “heavy” DP the small box of books that Sasha packed up yesterday is the complement of gave, and it can be moved to the end of the sentence. However, consider (27).
| (27) |
*[[萨沙昨天打包的一小箱书] 到了][萨沙昨天打包的一小箱书]。 *[[the small box of books that Sasha packed up yesterday] has arrived] [the small box of books that Sasha packed up yesterday]. *Sasha 昨天打包的小书箱已经到达 *has arrived the small box of books that Sasha packed up yesterday |
在(27)中,我们看到,当同一个重 DP 在句子中处于首位时(即,当它不与显性词相邻时),它不能被移动。这表明我们可以扩展(25)中的原则,使其不仅适用于补语。扩展版本在 (28)中(回想一下,移动涉及将短语复制到新位置,然后删除原始短语)。
In (27), we see that the same heavy DP can’t be moved when it is first in the sentence – that is, when it is not adjacent to an overt word. This shows us that we can expand the principle in (25) so that it applies to more than just complementizers. The expanded version is in (28) (recall that movement involves copying a phrase to a new position and then deleting the original).
| (28) |
如果一个元素是可删除的,则可以删除它,前提是它与一个显性头相邻,并且它在该头的补充。 An element, if it is deletable, can be deleted if it is adjacent to an overt head, and it is in that head’s complement. |
在(27)中,DP(被划掉的子句)不是任何东西的补语,所以它不可能符合(28)中的原则。实际上执行这个动作会导致不合语法的句子。请注意,我们的原则变得更加通用,涵盖了更多的数据(补语删除和重度 DP 移动),同时保持了准确性。像这样的描述充分性(和解释力)的有效提高被称为简约性,这是语法理论的一个积极结果。
In (27), the DP (the clause struck through) is not the complement of anything, so it cannot possibly conform to the principle in (28). Actually executing the movement results in an ungrammatical sentence. Note that our principle has become more general, covering more data (both complementizer deletion and heavy DP movement) while retaining accuracy. An efficient increase in descriptive adequacy (and explanatory power) like this is called parsimony, a positive result for a grammatical theory.
因此, (27)中的例子所说明的问题是另一个刺激匮乏问题,需要通过我们关于短语删除的 UG 原则来解决。我们假设儿童可以从他们的环境中学习到可以省略补语词,可以移动重 DP。必须学习这么多,因为并非所有语言都是如此。然而,学习英语的儿童并不会学习这些限制。他们无法学习(24)中不能省略补语词,也无法学习(27)中Sasha 昨天打包的小书箱不能移动,因为它们是无法学习的。在儿童听到的内容中没有这些限制的相关证据。假设儿童已经“知道”简单的 UG 条件 (28) ——来自他们的基因,而不是他们的经验——我们可以说,儿童从他们的经验中学习了一些简单的东西,一旦他们学会了这些东西,他们就具有令人惊讶的复杂能力,使他们能够省略补语词并适当地移动重 DP。还有更多,我们将看。
The problem illustrated by the example in (27) thus is another poverty-of-stimulus problem to be solved by our UG principle about phrasal deletion. We postulate that children can learn from their environment that complementizers may be omitted and that heavy DPs may be moved. This much has to be learned, because it is not true of all languages. However, children learning English do not learn the restrictions. They can’t learn that complementizers cannot be omitted in (24), or that the small box of books that Sasha packed yesterday cannot be moved in (27) because they are unlearnable. There is no relevant evidence of these restrictions in what children hear. Postulating that children already “know” the simple UG condition (28) – which comes from their genes, not their experience – permits us to say that children learn a few simple things from their experience and, once they learn these things, they have a surprisingly complex capacity that enables them to omit complementizers and move heavy DPs appropriately. And much more, as we shall see.
并非所有移动和删除都受到我们在此处描述的限制。例如,在某些情况下,Wh 移动受到我们没有空间说明的限制。
Not all movements and deletions are subject to the restrictions we have described here. Wh-movement under some circumstances, for example, is subject to restrictions we do not have the space to illustrate.
语法的另一大限制类型是代词的分布: 他、她、它等。语言学家长期以来一直对代词、反身代词(她自己、它自己等)和完整名词短语出现位置的限制感到好奇。这些限制是关于如何解释这些元素,这取决于它们在结构中出现的位置,而不是关于移动或删除。
Another major type of restriction on the grammar is found in the distribution of pronouns: he, her, it, etc. Linguists have long been intrigued by the constraints on where pronouns, reflexive pronouns (herself, itself, etc.), and full noun phrases can appear. These constraints are about how these elements can be interpreted, depending on where they appear in a structure, rather than being about movement or deletion.
考虑(29)中的事实。代词she和her在( 29a , b )中可能指Kim,但在( 29c , d )中不能指Kim。
Consider the facts in (29). The pronouns she and her may refer to Kim in (29a, b) but not in (29c, d).
| (29) |
|
我们通过使用下标索引 i 和 j 来表达共指;指代同一个人或指称物的元素将具有相同的下标索引。在 ( 29a , b ) 中,Kim可能指代与her和she相同的人(并且具有相同的索引 i),但是her和she也可能指代其他(女性)人,由索引 j 表示。相比之下,在( 29c , d ) 中,her指代的一定是 Kim 以外的人(并且索引与Kim 不同)。
We express coreference by using the subscripted indices i and j; elements referring to the same person or referent will have the same subscripted index. In (29a, b), Kim may refer to the same person (and have the same index i) as her and she, but her and she may also refer to some other (female) person, indicated by the index j. In contrast, in (29c, d) her must refer to somebody else than (and has a different index from) Kim.
还请考虑(30)中的事实。句子 ( 30a , b ) 可能是关于一个名叫 Kim 的人的陈述(因此相同的索引是可能的)。但是,( 30c -e) 只能解释为关于两个同名的人的陈述(不同的索引)。我们可以独立于上下文或言语情况的任何方面来了解这一点;我们似乎只是从单词的排列方式(从表达本身的形式)中知道这一点。
Consider also the facts in (30). Sentences (30a, b) may be statements about one person named Kim (so the same index is possible). However, (30c–e) may only be interpreted as statements about two people of the same name (distinct indices). We know this independently of context or of any aspect of the speech situation; we seem to know this simply from the way the words are arranged – from the form of the expression itself.
| (30) |
|
表达形式如何传达所有这些信息?例如,为什么在(29a)中her可能指 Kim,但在(30c)中两个Kim却不指同一个人?为什么在(29b)中she可能指 Kim,但在(29c)中不能指her?这是孩子们获得系统的另一个领域,该系统远远超出了他们所接受的输入。
How does the form of the expression convey all this information? Why, for example, may her refer to Kim in (29a) but the two Kims in (30c) may not refer to the same person? Why may she refer to Kim in (29b) but not her in (29c)? Here is another area where children acquire a system which goes far beyond the input they receive.
我们再次拥有复杂的潜意识知识,这些知识不是通过任何形式的指导获得的;直到你读到最后一段,你可能才意识到这些区别。孩子可能会在her明确指 Kim 的语境中听到(29a) ,或者在her指另一个未提及姓名的女人(可能是英国女王)的语境中听到句子 (29d)。另一方面,句子(29d)只有在her指另一个女人的语境中才会听到——事实上,除了 Kim 之外的任何女人。孩子们在没有证据或被告知her不能指 Kim 的情况下就知道了这一点。如果这里没有学习,那么这就可以解释为什么我们没有观察到孩子在指代名字和代词时犯错误(除了在一个非常具体的领域,我们不会讨论);他们没有表现出通过反复试验学习的迹象。但我们怎么能说没有学习呢?还有其他方法吗?
Again we have elaborate subconscious knowledge, which is not acquired through instruction of any kind; you were probably not aware of these distinctions until you read the last paragraph. A child may hear (29a) in a context where her clearly refers to Kim or in a context where her refers to another woman unnamed in this expression, perhaps the queen of England. On the other hand, sentence (29d) is heard only in a context where her refers to another woman – in fact to any woman other than Kim. Children come to know this without being supplied with evidence or being told that her cannot refer to Kim. If there is no learning here, then that would explain why we do not observe children making errors in the reference of names and pronouns (except in a very specific domain, which we will not discuss); they show no signs of learning by trial-and-error. But how can we say that there is no learning? Is there an alternative?
著名语言学家诺姆·乔姆斯基提出了“绑定理论”来解决这些刺激匮乏的问题(Chomsky 1981)。如果我们假设绑定理论是以下因素的组成部分,那么我们可以大大简化这些事实:普遍语法。约束理论在(31)中略微粗略地表述。像普遍语法的所有组成部分一样,它在人类获得经验之前就已经存在,实际上使我们能够解释我们的经验。绑定理论名词(名词和代词的覆盖术语)分为三类:像himself、sothers 这样的代词(也称为反身代词),像she、her、their 这样的代词,以及名称(其他一切)。
The well-known linguist Noam Chomsky proposed the Binding Theory as a solution to these poverty-of-stimulus problems (Chomsky 1981). The Binding Theory permitted a dramatic simplification of these facts, if we assume that it is a component of Universal Grammar. The Binding Theory is stated, somewhat roughly, in (31). Like all components of UG, it is available to humans in advance of experience, actually enabling us to interpret our experience. The Binding Theory divides nominals (a cover term for nouns and pronouns) into three types: anaphors like himself, themselves (also known as reflexive pronouns), pronouns like she, her, their, and names (everything else).
| (31) |
结合理论 Binding Theory
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每个名词都有一个域,大致就是它的子句。绑定理论决定每个名词是否与其子句的主语或其左侧的子句共同索引,或者不是。如果名词与其本身的主语或左边的另一个子句的主语同时索引,则称其为绑定。绑定理论就是由此得名的 。
Each nominal has a Domain, which is roughly its clause. The Binding Theory determines whether each nominal is coindexed with the subject of its clause or a clause to its left, or not. If the nominal is coindexed with the subject of its own or another clause to the left, it is said to be bound. That is how the Binding Theory gets its name.
| (32) |
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让我们看看这三个简单的原则如何预测英语名词的事实。对于每个句子,你应该检查每个名词可以指什么,不能指什么。接下来,我们必须首先确定(31)中的三个原则中的哪一个适用,然后检查该理论是否符合你的判断。
Let’s see how these three simple principles predict the facts of English nominals. For each sentence, you should check to see what each nominal can and cannot refer to. Next, we have to first determine which of the three principles in (31) applies, and then check whether the theory matches your judgments.
在(32a)中,她自己可以指代谁?她自己是一个首语,因此它应该遵循原则 A,这意味着它与它自己子句的主语共同索引(并指代)——它的词形变化短语(IP)。 (32a)中粗体斜体的限定词短语是本句的主语,因此,sherself必须与Kim's mother共同索引。它不能只指Kim,因为Kim只是主语的一部分。因此, (32a)中shelby的唯一可能解释是,它是指Kim's mother。
In (32a), who can herself refer to? Herself is an anaphor, so it should obey Principle A, meaning it is coindexed with (and refers to) the subject of its own clause – its inflection phrase (IP). The boldface, italicized determiner phrase in (32a) is the subject of this clause, so herself must be coindexed with Kim’s mother. It can’t refer to just Kim because Kim is only part of the subject. So the only possible interpretation of herself in (32a) is that it refers to Kim’s mother.
在(32b)中,her可能指Kim或其他句子中未提及的女性。Her是代词,因此适用原则 B。原则 B 规定her不能指代其自身子句的主语。如果her指代Kim 的母亲(其子句的主语),那么它将被限制在其域内,就像(32a)中的shelth一样。但代词的规则与代词的规则相反;代词不能被限制在其域内。所以her不能指代Kim 的母亲。原则 B 仅规定(32b)中的代词her不能指代其自身的主语。所以Her在(32b)中可以指代Kim,因为Kim只是主语的一部分,或者它可以指代任何在上下文中有意义的女性,即使句子中没有提到她。
In (32b), her may refer to Kim or to some other female person not mentioned in the sentence. Her is a pronoun, so Principle B applies. Principle B says that her cannot refer to the subject of its own clause. If her referred to Kim’s mother, the subject of its clause, it would be bound within its Domain, like herself is in (32a). But the rule for pronouns is the opposite of the rule for anaphors; it is forbidden for pronouns to be bound within their Domains. So her cannot refer to Kim’s mother. Principle B states only that the pronoun her in (32b) cannot refer to its own subject. So Her can refer to Kim in (32b), because Kim is only part of the subject, or it may refer to any female person that makes sense in context, even if she is not mentioned in the sentence.
(32c)引入了额外的复杂性,即嵌入从句。医生是代词her所在从句的主语,所以根据原则 B,医生不能绑定her;他们不能指同一个人。虽然Kim 的母亲是 IP 的主语,但这并不重要,因为her的域只是较低的 IP。我们在代词 IP 之外发现的任何关系都不重要。事实上, her可以指Kim 的母亲, Kim或其他女性。绑定理论并没有告诉我们her可以指什么——只是它不能指代它自己从句的主语——her可以自由地指代任何其他人。同样,在(32d)中, her可以与Kim共同索引,但不一定如此,因为Kim在代词her的域之外。
(32c) introduces an additional complexity, an embedded clause. The doctor is the subject of the clause in which the pronoun her is located, so according to Principle B the doctor cannot bind her; they can’t refer to the same person. Although Kim’s mother is the subject of an IP, it doesn’t matter, since the Domain for her is only the lower IP. Whatever relationships we find beyond the pronoun’s IP don’t matter. In fact, her could refer to Kim’s mother, to Kim, or to some other female person. The Binding Theory doesn’t tell us what her can refer to – just that it can’t refer to the subject of its own clause – her is free to refer to anyone else. Similarly, in (32d), her may be coindexed with Kim, but doesn’t have to be, because Kim is outside of the Domain of the pronoun her.
(32e)中的考虑有所不同。Kim是一个名字,因此适用约束理论的原则 C。原则 C 是唯一不指代域的原则。它规定,名字在句子中不得受其左侧任何主语的约束,句号。DP医生是左主语,因此它不能指代Kim。但另一个Kim也被排除在外。它与下位Kim不在同一个子句中,但它仍然是左主语。因此,(32e)必然指代两个 Kim;下位Kim必定是与上位Kim不同的人。
The considerations in (32e) are different. Kim is a name, so Principle C of the Binding Theory applies. Principle C is the only one that doesn’t refer to a Domain. It says that names must not be bound by any subject to their left in a sentence, period. The DP the doctor is a leftward subject, so it cannot refer to Kim. But the other Kim is excluded as well. It’s not in the same clause as the lower Kim, but it is still a leftward subject. As a result, (32e) necessarily refers to two Kims; the lower Kim must be a different person than the higher Kim.
有时,你可能会遇到像 Bo Nanas 漫画中的例子,明显违反了约束理论。Bo 所说的最后一个子句违反了原则 B,即代词不能指代其自身子句的主语。漫画中最后一个子句的结构为 (i)。
Occasionally, you might encounter examples like the one in the Bo Nanas cartoon that clearly violate the Binding Theory. The last clause in what Bo says contains a violation of Principle B, that a pronoun cannot refer to the subject of its own clause. The last clause in the cartoon has the structure in (i).
代词me指代 Bo Nanas,他也是I的所指。I 是包含me的从句的主语。约束理论认为,这里需要使用同义反复myself (并且me不能指代其从句的主语)。但这一例外实际上证明了规则。Bo Nanas 送给自己一份万圣节剩下的糖果作为礼物,让自己觉得自己很特别。他想让它看起来像是别人送的。他评论礼物寒酸,是假装送礼物的“我”与收到礼物的“我”不是同一个人。从这个意义上说,送礼者 Bo Nanas 和收礼者 Bo Nanas 不是同一个人,漫画家 John Kovaleski 利用约束理论来证明这一点。如果没有原则 B,me的使用就不会如此有效。
The pronoun me refers to Bo Nanas, who is also the referent of I. I is the subject of the clause containing me. The Binding Theory says that the anaphor myself is required here (and that me here cannot refer to the subject of its clause). But this exception actually proves the rule. Bo Nanas has sent himself a gift of leftover Halloween candy to make himself feel special. He wants it to seem that the package has been sent by someone else. His comment on the shabbiness of the gift is in the context of the pretense that the “I” who sent the gift is someone other than the “me” who received it. In that sense, Bo Nanas the sender is not the same person as Bo Nanas the receiver, and the cartoonist, John Kovaleski, exploits the Binding Theory to make that point. If there were no Principle B, the use of me would not be nearly so effective.
还要注意的是,(i) 是动词 thought 的补语。本来可以出现在thought旁边的 that 已被删除,这是(25)中的原则所允许的。动画片中if子句中myself的用法是副词用法的一个例子,尽管事实证明它符合约束理论,但我们在本章中不会介绍它。
Notice also that (i) is the complement of the verb thought. That, which could have appeared adjacent to thought, has been deleted, as permitted by the principle in (25). The use of myself in the if-clause in the cartoon is an example of the adverbial use of an anaphor, which we don’t cover in this chapter, although it turns out to conform to the Binding Theory.
绑定理论无法从幼儿听到的语言中学到。它是 UG 的一部分,是儿童最初接触语言时所具备的一部分。作为 UG 的一部分,儿童已经“知道”名词的三个类别及其共指限制。儿童只需从语言经验中学习他们语言中的哪些词适合这些类别——哪些词是首语指代词,哪些词是代词,哪些词是名称。他们可以从听到的句子中的积极证据中做到这一点。一旦儿童了解到themselves是首语指代词,her是代词等等,所有适当的索引关系就会随之而来,无需进一步学习。结果是一个涵盖无限可能性的简单系统。
The Binding Theory cannot be learned from the language that young children hear. It is part of UG, part of what children bring to their initial experience with language. As part of UG, children already “know” the three categories of nominals and the restrictions on their coreference. Children need only learn from language experience which words in their language fit into these categories – which words are anaphors, which are pronouns, and which are names. This they can do from positive evidence in the sentences that they hear. Once a child has learned that themselves is an anaphor, her is a pronoun, and so on, all the appropriate indexing relations follow, with no further learning required. The result is a simple system that covers an infinite number of possibilities.
诺姆·乔姆斯基是研究句子结构的领军学者。他不仅提出了约束理论,还提出了刺激贫乏论,即“刺激贫乏”的概念。普遍语法,以及本章的核心句法分析的整个方法。1957 年,他的专著《句法结构》的问世彻底改变了句法研究。书中提出的想法是一部更为广泛的著作《语言理论的逻辑结构》的一部分,该著作于 1975 年出版,但在之前的二十年里广为流传。他目前的工作以《最简纲领》(1995 年)和过去十年的相关工作为代表,侧重于推导出能够解释语言语法中不可学方面的最少和最简单的原则。
Noam Chomsky is the leading scholar in the study of the structure of sentences. He is responsible not only for the Binding Theory, but for developing the argument from the poverty of stimulus, the concept of Universal Grammar, and the entire approach to syntactic analysis that is central to this chapter. The appearance of his monograph Syntactic Structures in 1957 revolutionized the study of syntax. The ideas presented there formed part of a more extensive work, The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, published in 1975 but widely circulated over the previous twenty years. His current work, represented by The Minimalist Program (1995) and related work over the past ten years, focuses on deriving the fewest and simplest principles that can explain the unlearnable aspects of linguistic grammars.
乔姆斯基目前是麻省理工学院语言学和哲学系的研究所教授。他曾在美国和其他国家的许多大学授课,并获得过无数荣誉学位和奖项。他广泛写作和讲学,涉及语言学、哲学、思想史、当代问题、国际事务和美国外交政策。他最近的一些著作有《新一代划清界限》、《语言和心智研究的新视野》 、《流氓国家》、《9-11:还有其他选择吗?》、《理解权力》、《论自然与语言》、《海盗与皇帝,新旧》、《乔姆斯基论民主与教育》、《中东幻想》和霸权还是生存。
Chomsky is currently Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has lectured at many universities in the United States and in other countries, and is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards. He has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs, and US foreign policy. Some of his most recent books are A New Generation Draws the Line; New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind; Rogue States; 9–11: Was there an Alternative?; Understanding Power; On Nature and Language; Pirates and Emperors, Old and New; Chomsky on Democracy and Education; Middle East Illusions; and Hegemony or Survival.
我们研究了人类语法的几个方面,发现我们可以解释人们很容易识别为合乎语法或不合语法的结构之间的复杂区别。这种能力来自基本语法层面的简单信息,这些信息与简单的、特定于语法的信息相互作用,而这些信息很容易从孩子的语言经验中学习到。我们描绘的儿童学习语言语法的画面是对篮球机器人幻想的更细致入微的版本。在体验到人们打篮球之前,机器人对篮球一无所知。但一旦它有机会观看和打比赛,它就会发现,它对篮球的了解远远超出了它从经验中学到的任何东西。换句话说,它对篮球的了解是一个刺激匮乏的问题。正如科学家得出结论认为机器人的情况一定存在某种预编程一样,从事我们向您展示的研究方向的语言学家也得出结论,儿童天生就以特定的方式做好了学习语言的准备。他们生来就有一个生物语言器官——普遍语法。
We have examined several areas of people’s grammars and seen that we can account for complex arrays of distinctions between structures that people readily recognize as grammatical or ungrammatical. This ability comes from simple information at the level of UG that interacts with simple, grammar-specific information that is readily learnable from a child’s linguistic experience. The picture we have painted of children learning the grammars of languages is a more nuanced version of the fantasy about the basketball-playing robot. The robot didn’t know anything about basketball until it experienced people playing the game. But once it had the opportunity to watch and play the game, it turned out to have knowledge of basketball that went beyond anything it could have learned from its experience. In other words, its knowledge of basketball was a poverty-of-stimulus problem. Just as the scientist concluded that there must have been some preprogramming in the robot’s case, linguists who pursue the line of research we have shown you also conclude that children are born prepared in specific ways to learn languages. They are born with a biological language organ – Universal Grammar.
到目前为止,我们关注的是普遍语法和一些似乎是语言器官固有组成部分的原则。另一方面,在这些原则中,不同语言的句法中存在着许多有趣的差异。我们现在来谈谈其中的一些差异。其中一些涉及我们已经介绍过的句法方面。例如,我们已经看到,英语中的补语出现在其头部的右侧。在句子The small dog bited the bone 中,DP the bone是动词cheered的补语,它位于cheered的右侧。然而,补语并不总是在所有语言中都出现在其头部的右侧。我们还简要讨论了英语中的 wh-movement,在句子中,wh-word what移到前面,如What would the puppy like?。然而,并不是所有语言都有可移动的 wh-phrases。
So far, we have focused on Universal Grammar and some of the principles that seem to be an intrinsic part of the language organ. On the other hand, within those principles, there is room for plenty of interesting differences in syntax from one language to another. We are now going to turn to some of those differences. Some of them touch on aspects of syntax that we have presented. For example, we have seen that complements appear to the right of their heads in English. In the sentence The small dog chewed the bone, the DP the bone is the complement of the verb chewed, and it is to the right of chewed. However, complements do not always appear to the right of their heads in all languages. We also briefly discussed wh-movement in English, where the wh-word what moves to the front in a sentence like What would the puppy like?. However, not all languages have movable wh-phrases.
最后,我们将介绍另一种我们尚未提及但以不同方式出现的句法现象。这是某些语言将名词置于不同类别中并产生句法后果的特征。我们称这些性别为,因为欧洲语言中名词分为阴性、阳性,有时还有中性。但世界上其他语言的名词性别远不止两三种。我们将看看斯瓦希里语(也称为 Kiswahili)中的十种或更多性别以及泰语中的性别分数。
Finally, we will present another syntactic phenomenon that we haven’t yet mentioned, but that turns up in different ways. This is the feature of some languages that places nouns in various categories, with syntactic consequences. We call these genders, because that is what they are called in European languages that categorize nouns as feminine, masculine, and sometimes neuter. But languages elsewhere in the world categorize their nouns into many more genders than just two or three. We’ll look at the ten or more genders in Swahili (also called Kiswahili) and the scores of genders in Thai.
在英语中,我们已经看到动词和介词的补语都附在动词或介词的右侧(补语用下划线表示:我喜欢坐在椅子上的金枪鱼)。在印地语中,动词短语的补语向左分支,如(33a)。有印地语中没有介词短语;相反,印地语有把补语放在左边,像动词短语一样,如(33b)中所示。
In English, we have seen that the complements of verbs and of prepositions are attached to the right of the verb or preposition (the complements are underlined: I like tuna, on the chair). In Hindi, verb phrases have complements branching to the left, as in (33a). There are no prepositional phrases in Hindi; instead Hindi has postpositions with complements to the left, like verb phrases, as in (33b).
| (33) |
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学习印地语的儿童从他们周围的语言中得到证据表明,主语-补语关系是左分支的。然而,尽管不同语言的词序不同,但动词的补语和前置或后置短语在任何语言中的表现都像补语一样语言。
Children learning Hindi get evidence from the language around them that the head–complement relationship is left-branching. However, although word order varies across languages, the complements of verbs and pre- or postpositional phrases behave like complements in any language.
许多语言中疑问词的处理比英语简单得多。在英语和许多其他欧洲语言中,疑问词被移到句子的前面。在其他语言中,在英语中被翻译为疑问词的词则保留在原来的位置。泰语也是如此,泰语中的问题形式如(34)所示(例子来自 Haas 和 Subhanka 1945:58–59;敬语是表达对受话人的尊重的词——某些语言中必须使用敬语)。
The treatment of question words in many languages is a lot less complicated than it is in English. In English and in many other European languages, question words are moved to the front of their sentences. In other languages the words that would be translated as wh-words in English simply remain in their original positions. This is true of Thai, where questions are asked as in (34) (examples from Haas and Subhanka 1945: 58–59; an honorific is a word that conveys respect for the addressee – they are required in certain languages).
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泰国儿童在理解这些疑问词的位置听到它们。尽管 UG 为他们提供了移动所需的原则,但这些原则对于thîin ǎ j、ʔ àraj和mýaray等元素来说并不需要,因为它们不会移动。
Thai children hear these question words in the same location in which they are understood. Although UG gives them the principles they would need for movement, these principles are not needed for elements like thîinǎj, ʔàraj, and mýaray, since they don’t move.
许多语言的所有名词都与性别相关。英语只在第三人称代词中指代性别,而性别则是“自然”性别,其中he和him指代性别为男性的人和动物,she和her指代女性,it指代其他一切(除了指代船舶的过时做法,也许还有 汽车就像她一样)。然而,在德语这样的语言中,每个名词都有阳性、阴性或中性。有时,名词的性别正是你所期望的,所以Frau “女人”是阴性,而Mann “男人”是阳性。但通常情况下,名词的性别分配是相当随意的。例如,在常见的餐具中,Messer “刀”是中性,Gabel “叉”是阴性,而Löffel “勺子”是阳性。当这些词被放入短语中时,限定词和形容词的结尾必须与名词的性别相匹配,这样你才能得到(35)中的区别。
Many languages have genders associated with all their nouns. English refers to gender only in third-person pronouns, and then gender is “natural” gender, with he and him referring to people and animals that are sexually male, she and her referring to females and it for everything else (except for the outmoded practice of referring to ships and maybe automobiles as she). In a language like German, though, every noun has a masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. Sometimes the genders are just the ones you would expect, so Frau ‘woman’ is feminine and Mann ‘man’ is masculine. Usually, though, the assignment of gender is quite arbitrary. For example, of the common eating utensils, Messer ‘knife’ is neuter, Gabel ‘fork’ is feminine, and Löffel ‘spoon’ is masculine. When these words are put into phrases, determiners and adjectives have to have endings that match the gender of the nouns, so that you get the distinctions in (35).
| (35) |
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任何学习德语的人都必须学会这些性别分配。通常你无法猜测名词属于什么性别。例如,叉子并没有什么特别女性化的特征,勺子也没有什么男性化的特征。
These gender assignments have to be learned by anyone learning German. Generally you can’t guess what gender a noun belongs to. There is nothing particularly feminine about a fork, for instance, or masculine about a spoon.
学习斯瓦希里语的性别则要困难得多。斯瓦希里语是东非广泛使用的班图语,有十种性别,通常称为名词类。班图专家以不同的方式计算性别,因此性别的数量为 7 到 18。与德语和其他欧洲语言中的性别一样,斯瓦希里语性别(名词类)也有意义,但名词的性别分配有时是任意的,例如德语中的刀、叉和勺子。例如,m/mi类(因为单数和复数名词分别带有前缀而得名)有时被称为“树”类,因为其中的许多名词指的是树木和植物,但也有表示工具和其他事物的词具有这种性别。
The task of learning genders in Swahili, a Bantu language widely spoken in East Africa, is much more daunting. Swahili has some ten genders, which are usually called noun classes. Bantu experts count the genders in different ways, so the number of genders is given as anywhere from seven to eighteen. Like the genders in German and other European languages, Swahili genders (noun classes) have meanings, but the assignment of nouns to genders is sometimes arbitrary, like the German words for knife, fork, and spoon. For example, the m/mi class (so called because of the prefixes on singular and plural nouns, respectively) is sometimes called the “tree” class, because many of the nouns in it refer to trees and plants, but there are words for tools and other things that have this gender, as well.
斯瓦希里语的性别对句子的句法有普遍的影响。不仅形容词必须有匹配的前缀(而不是像德语那样有后缀),但名词本身及其对应的动词也必须有正确的前缀。(36)说明了其中的一些工作原理(示例改编自《世界语言 7:非洲语言家族》和 Katamba 2003)。
Swahili genders have a pervasive effect in the syntax of sentences. Not only do adjectives have to have matching prefixes (not suffixes, as in German), but the nouns themselves and the verbs they agree with also have to have the right prefixes. Some of how this works is illustrated in (36) (examples adapted from Languages of the World 7: African Language Families, and Katamba 2003).
| (36) |
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在(36a)中,mtu在斯瓦希里语中表示“人”,词根-tu自然属于“人”(m/wa )性别。修饰mtu的“一”和“高”的单词共享“人”性别前缀。动词词根-anguka “落下”也是如此,尽管前缀发音为a-。Kikapu “篮子”具有“无生命物体”(ki/vi)性别。如(36b)所示,其修饰词“小”以及其从句“arrived”中的动词都共享适当的性别前缀。对于及物动词,动词与其主语和补语都一致。
In (36a), mtu is Swahili for ‘person’ and the root -tu belongs, naturally enough, to the “person” (m/wa) gender. The words for ‘one’ and ‘tall’ modifying mtu share the “person” gender prefix. So does the verb root -anguka ‘fall,’ even though the prefix is pronounced a-. Kikapu ‘basket’ has the “inanimate object” (ki/vi) gender. As (36b) shows, its modifier ‘little’ and the verb in its clause ‘arrived’ all share the appropriate gender prefix. In the case of transitive verbs, the verb agrees with both its subject and its complement.
| (37) |
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在(37)中,词根-toto “孩子” 也是m/wa性别,其性别有复数前缀,动词也是如此。但动词也与ki/vi性别的宾语-tabu一致。类似其余八个左右的性别存在一致模式。在这些例子中,名词的含义与性别的含义相匹配,但情况并非总是如此。ki /vi “无生命物体”性别还包括一些表示人和动物以及一些身体部位的词。
In (37), the root -toto ‘child,’ also in the m/wa gender, has the plural prefix for its gender, as does the verb. But the verb also agrees with its object -tabu from the ki/vi gender. Similar agreement patterns exist for the remaining eight or so genders. In these examples, the meaning of the noun matches the meaning of the gender, but this is not always the case. The ki/vi “inanimate object” gender also includes a few words for people and animals and some body parts.
在泰语中,名词是按照性别分类的,但在泰语中,性别有几十种。泰语不是一种有前缀或后缀的语言,所以性别的出现方式非常不同。泰语不表示一个对象是否是复数,所以你谈论的是一个还是多个东西是从上下文中推断出来的。如果你想指定一个具体的数量,就必须使用分类词和数字。考虑(38)中的泰语例子。
In Thai, nouns are categorized in a gender-like way, but in Thai, there are literally scores of genders. Thai is not a language with prefixes or suffixes, so the genders show up in a very different way. Thai does not indicate whether an object is plural, so whether you are talking about one or many things is inferred from the context. If you want to specify a specific number of things, it is necessary to use a classifier along with the number. Consider the Thai examples in (38).
| (38) |
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在(38a)中,只有上下文才能确定我认识一位老师还是多位老师。在(38b)中,我指定我认识两位老师,并且必须使用用于人的分类器。如果我想说我看到了两朵云,我会使用不同的分类器,如(39)中所示。
In (38a), only the context would determine whether I know a teacher or a number of teachers. In (38b), I specify that I know two teachers, and the classifier used for people has to be used. If I wanted to say that I see two clouds, I would use a different classifier, as in (39).
| (39) |
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分类词k ɔˇ ɔ n表示被视为块状的事物,包括石头和糖块,以及云。泰语分类词(性别)通常指物理属性。例如,分类词baj表示水果的性别,而ph y ˇ yn表示包括可使用的布片形式的性别,如毛巾和窗帘。但与大多数性别系统一样,哪些名词属于哪些性别存在相当大的不可预测性。baj 表示的性别不仅包括水果,还包括鸡蛋和容器。另一个性别称为分类词khan ,涵盖雨伞、叉子和勺子、有轨电车和汽车(Haas and Subhanka 1945)。
The classifier kɔˇɔn means things that are perceived as lumps, including stones and lumps of sugar, as well as clouds. Thai classifiers (genders) often refer to physical properties. For example, the classifier baj represents the gender for fruits and phyˇyn is the gender including pieces of cloth in a form than can be used, like towels and curtains. But like most gender systems, there is considerable unpredictability about what nouns are in what gender. The gender represented by baj includes not only fruits, but also eggs and containers. Another gender, calling for the classifier khan, covers umbrellas, forks and spoons, streetcars and automobiles (Haas and Subhanka 1945).
语言倾向于将名词分组,这些类别有时与所含名词的含义有关,但通常完全是任意的。 这些类别在欧洲语言中被称为性别,我们在斯瓦希里语和泰语中也使用了性别一词来强调它们的共同点。性别对具有性别的语言的句法有影响,但这些影响在不同语言类型中有很大不同其他。
Languages have a tendency to group nouns in categories that sometimes have a relationship to the meanings of the nouns that are included, but are often entirely arbitrary. These categories are called genders in European languages, and we have used the term for the categories in Swahili and Thai to emphasize what they have in common. Gender has an effect on the syntax of the languages that have gender, but these effects are quite different from one type of language to another.
关于句子结构最令人吃惊的可能根本不是结构,而是语法结构的大部分内容不需要学习。人们“知道”很多关于什么是可能的语法结构或什么不是可能的语法结构,而无需被教导,甚至不需要有学习它的正确经验。相反,似乎存在一个语言器官,它包含一个人的语言能力,具有其自身的内在属性。这些属性在很大程度上决定了某人语法的最终结构,与他们的经验无关。这种推理被称为刺激贫乏论。
Perhaps the most startling thing about the structure of sentences is not about structure at all, but the fact that much of grammatical structure does not have to be learned. People “know” a lot about what is or isn’t a possible grammatical structure without having been taught, or even having had the right kind of experience to have learned it. Instead, there appears to be a language organ that encompasses a person’s language ability, with its own intrinsic properties. These properties determine much of what the ultimate structure of someone’s grammar will be, independently of their experience. This line of reasoning is called the poverty-of-the-stimulus argument.
句子结构的一个原则是组合性;句子由小句和短语组成,而小句和短语又由更小的小句和短语或单词组成。短语结构规则可以概括什么类型的短语可以出现在句子的哪里,以及什么类型的短语和单词可以出现在其他短语中。现代句法理论通过将心理词汇中的单词投射到简单短语来实现同样的任务。一些短语具有补语和/或说明词分支,它们与从其他单词投射出来的短语合并。一种特殊的合并称为附加,它允许在短语中包含修饰语(如形容词)。一旦通过投射和合并构造了短语,就可以通过移动和删除进一步修改它们。
One principle of the structure of sentences is compositionality; the fact that sentences are composed of clauses and phrases, which in turn are made up of smaller clauses and phrases or words. Rules of phrase structure can capture the generalizations about what types of phrases can appear where in sentences, and what kinds of phrases and words can appear within other phrases. The same task is achieved in modern syntactic theory by projection of simple phrases from words from the mental lexicon. Some phrases have complement and/or specifier branches which merge with phrases that have been projected from other words. A special kind of merger is called adjunction, which allows modifiers (such as adjectives) to be included in phrases. Once phrases are constructed by projection and merger, they can be further modified by movement and deletion.
语法是有限的,但能够产生无限数量的句子。这是通过递归实现的,递归允许重复应用相同的语法过程,而对应用频率没有原则上的限制。这意味着任何语言中都没有最长的句子,因此句子数量也没有限制。所有语言都具有三种递归手段,即多重附加、嵌入和并列。
Grammars are finite but are capable of producing an infinite number of sentences. This is achieved by recursion, which allows the same grammatical processes to apply repeatedly, with no principled limitation on how often they may apply. This means that there is no longest sentence in any language, and consequently no limit to the number of sentences it has. Three recursive devices that all languages have are multiple adjunction, embedding, and coordination.
孩子们似乎从出生起就“知道”限制短语移动和删除的结构原则。无需教导,他们也“知道”限制名词性表达之间共指可能性的绑定理论原则。
From birth, children seem to “know” structural principles restricting the movement and deletion of phrases. Without being taught, they also “know” the principles of the Binding Theory, which limits the possibilities of coreference between nominal expressions.
本章强调了不同语言之间的共同点,但不同语言之间也存在显著差异。主语和补语之间的词序可能有所不同,而且并非所有语言都有可移动的 wh 短语。语法性别对许多语言的句法来说比英语更加多样化和重要。
This chapter has emphasized what is in common across languages, but there are remarkable differences among languages as well. The word order between heads and complements can vary and not all languages have movable wh-phrases. Grammatical gender is far more varied and important to the syntax of many languages than it is in English.
确定下列每个单词的句法类别。然后使用上面提供的分布定义证明你的选择。注意:许多定义都是多部分的。一个单词只需满足其中一个部分即可算作句法类别的成员。
Identify the syntactic category or categories of each of the following words. Then justify your choice using the distributional definitions provided above. NB: many of the definitions are multi-part. A word need only fulfill one of the parts to count as a member of a syntactic category.
考虑以下短语结构规则(此处从第 112 页的 (9)重复):
Consider the following phrase structure rules (repeated here from (9) on p. 112):
句子→ NP VP
Sentence → NP VP
名词→ (D) (A) N
NP → (D) (A) N
VP → V (NP)
VP → V (NP)
这些短语结构规则能生成下面的每个句子吗?请准确说明为什么或为什么不可以。
Can these phrase structure rules generate each of the sentences below? Say precisely why or why not.
考虑以下数据:
Consider the following data:
这一系列步骤将引导您完成使用投影方法绘制句子“雪融化了”的树所需的步骤。显示所有步骤。
This series of steps will take you through the steps necessary to draw the tree for the sentence: The snow melted using a projection approach. Show all your steps.
按照以下步骤构建树结构:那些年轻人会喝拿铁。显示所有步骤。
Follow these steps to construct the tree structure for: Those young people will drink the lattes. Show all your steps.
按照以下步骤创建树结构:侏儒认为雪融化了。显示所有步骤。
Follow these steps to create the tree structure for: The gnome believes that the snow melted. Show all your steps.
按出现的顺序列出下列每个句子中的每个递归设备。第一个已经为您完成了。
List each of the recursive devices in each of the following sentences in the order in which they appear. The first one is done for you.
协调:......尽快行动
Coordination: … and do it soon
考虑一下你在练习 3.8中构建的树。这个句子的一个可接受的变体是“侏儒相信雪融化了” 。解释如何可以从你在练习 3.8中构建的结构中得出这个变体。
Consider the tree you constructed in Exercise 3.8. An acceptable variant of this sentence is The gnome believes the snow melted. Explain how this variant can be permissibly derived from the structure you built in Exercise 3.8.
请考虑以下示例:
Consider the following examples:
我们可以通过三个小流氓的重度DP移动从a导出b 。解释为什么我们不能通过同样的移动从c导出d。
We can derive b from a by heavy DP shift of the three young rapscallions. Explain why we cannot derive d from c by the same movement.
考虑以下句子:
Consider the following sentence:
[ IP [ NP Jane 的妹妹] [ VP提醒她 [ CP [新毕业生 IP曾承诺要提高自己]]]]。
[IP [NP Jane’s sister] [VP reminded her [CP that [IP the new graduate had promised to improve herself]]]].
“Hindlish” 是一种由英语单词和 Hindi 语序组成的虚构语言。将以下内容从英语翻译成 Hindlish。第一个已经为您完成了。(注意:(i)Hindlish 没有表示the或a/an 的限定词。(ii)整个动词短语(包括其补语)在 Hindlish 中位于最后。)
“Hindlish” is a made-up language consisting of English words and Hindi word order. Translate the following from English to Hindlish. The first one is done for you. (Notes: (i) Hindlish has no determiners meaning the or a/an. (ii) The whole verb phrase, including its complement, is last in Hindlish.)
考虑以下来自阿姆哈拉语(一种在埃塞俄比亚使用的闪族语言)的数据。Almaz是女性专有名称(部分数据来自 Appleyard 1995)。
Consider the following data from Amharic, a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. Almaz is a female proper name (some data from Appleyard 1995).
| 一个。 |
Almaz bet ayyä čč Almaz bet ayyäčč Almaz 房屋锯 = ‘Almaz 锯房子’ Almaz house saw = ‘Almaz saw a house’ |
| b. |
Almaz doro 是什麽意思 Almaz doro wät’ bällačč Almaz 鸡肉炖菜吃了 = ‘Almaz 吃了鸡肉炖菜’ Almaz chicken stew ate = ‘Almaz ate chicken stew’ |
| c. |
t'äräp'p'eza s ɨ r t’äräp’p’eza sɨr table under = ‘桌子下面’ table under = ‘under a table’ |
| d. |
你现在看见了 ya säw man näw 那个人 = ‘那个人是谁?’ that man who is = ‘Who is that man?’ |
| e. |
ɨ ssu m ɨ n yastäm ɨ rallu ɨssu mɨn yastämɨrallu 他教什么 = ‘他教什么?’ he what teach = ‘What does he teach?’ |
“Enghili” 是一种虚构的语言,其性别与斯瓦希里语的性别类似,但有英语单词。此外,英语中的时态与斯瓦希里语中的时态相同,都是位于动词词根之前的词素。将以下英语句子翻译成英语。第一个句子已经为您完成。英语中现在时的词素是pre,过去时的词素是pa。与 Hindlish 一样,没有表示the或a/an 的限定词。必须在英语需要它们的地方添加它们。同样在英语中,名词修饰语跟在名词之后。以下是您需要的英语名词和性别列表:
“Enghili” is a made-up language that has genders that work like gender in Swahili, but has English words. Also, tense in Enghili works the way it does in Swahili, as a morpheme that comes somewhere before the verb root. Translate the following Enghili sentences into English. The first one is done for you. The morpheme for the present tense in Enghili is pre and the morpheme for the past tense is pa. As in Hindlish, there are no determiners meaning the or a/an. They will have to be supplied where English needs them. Also in Enghili, noun modifiers follow their nouns. The following is a list of Enghili nouns and genders that you will need:
名词 性别前缀(单数/复数) 孩子 米/西澳 书 基/维 车 基/维 树 米/英里
Noun Gender prefixes (singular/plural) child m/wa book ki/vi car ki/vi tree m/mi
| 一个。 |
英语:mchild mprekiread kibook。 Enghili: mchild mprekiread kibook. 英语:孩子读一本书。 English: The child reads a book. |
| b. |
英语:kicar kipamstrike mtree。 Enghili: kicar kipamstrike mtree. 英语: English: |
| c. |
英语:wagirl wapamkiss mbaby。 Enghili: wagirl wapamkiss mbaby. 英语: English: |
| d. |
英语:Mitree mitwo mipafall。 Enghili: Mitree mitwo mipafall. 英语: English: |
“泰语” 是另一种由英语单词组成的虚构语言。泰语的性别与泰语相同,但缺少单数/复数或时态词尾,而泰语有。与印度语和英语一样,泰语中没有the或a/an 的词。您需要的名词已分配到下表中的性别分类器中。将以下英语句子翻译成泰语。第一个句子已经为您完成了。
“Thailish” is yet another made-up language with English words. Thailish has genders that work as in Thai, and lacks endings for singular/plural or tense, as Thai does. Like Hindlish and Enghili, there are no words for the or a/an. The nouns you will need are assigned to their gender classifiers in the table below. Translate the following English sentences into Thailish. The first one is done for you.
性别分类器
Gender classifiers
人 戳 地球 孩子 铅笔 苹果 女孩 蝙蝠 球 学生 男人 国王
Person Stick Globe child pencil apple girl bat ball student man king
| 一个。 |
英语:孩子们吃了两个苹果。 English: The children ate two apples. 泰国语: 孩子吃两个地球的苹果。 Thailish: child eat apple two globe. |
| b. |
英语:三个女孩追两个球。 English: Three girls chased two balls. 泰语: Thailish: |
| c. |
英语:一支球棒触到了两个球。 English: One bat touched two balls. 泰语: Thailish: |
| d. |
英语:球员们使用一根球棒。 English: The players used one bat. 泰语: Thailish: |
| e. |
英语:每个学生有五支铅笔。(提示:在泰语中,每支铅笔相当于一个数字。) English: Each student has five pencils. (Hint: Each works like a number in Thailish.) 泰语: Thailish: |
| f. |
英语:人们向国王鞠躬致敬。 English: The men bowed to the king. 泰语: Thailish: |
语言学中有两个主要领域研究意义。语义学关注单词、短语和句子的字面意义;它关注语法过程如何根据简单的含义构建复杂的含义。语用学关注特定情境中的语言使用;它旨在解释语言之外的因素如何影响说话者使用语言传达的字面意义和非字面意义。大多数研究意义的语言学家将语义学和语用学的研究结合起来。虽然语义学家在技术上是研究语义的人,但事实上大多数语义学家都研究语义学和语用学。在本章中,我们将首先讨论语义学,然后讨论语用学。在本章的最后,我们将研究一些与思考意义相关的基础哲学问题,并讨论当今语言学中流行的一些关于意义的不同理论观点。
There are two main fields within linguistics that study meaning. Semantics focuses on the literal meanings of words, phrases, and sentences; it is concerned with how grammatical processes build complex meanings out of simpler ones. Pragmatics focuses on the use of language in particular situations; it aims to explain how factors outside language contribute to both literal meaning and nonliteral meanings which speakers communicate using language. Most linguists who study meaning combine the study of semantics and pragmatics. While a semanticist is technically someone who studies semantics, in fact most semanticists investigate both semantics and pragmatics. In this chapter, we will first discuss semantics, and then pragmatics. To conclude the chapter, we will examine some foundational philosophical issues which are relevant to thinking about meaning and will discuss some of the different theoretical perspectives on meaning which are popular within linguistics today.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
大家都知道语言可以用来表达意义,但定义意义却并不容易。一个问题是意义有多个维度。想象一下,我问你:“你能给我一个苹果吗?”,同时看着你旁边桌子上的一碗苹果。我实际上问的是,你是否有能力给我一个苹果;这就是我所说的话的语义。有时人们会开一个令人讨厌的玩笑,只回答这种问题的语义;他们只会回答“是的,我可以”。但我几乎肯定想要的是你给我你旁边的一个苹果,我希望你知道这就是我想要的。说话者的意思就是我想要传达的,它超越了我所说的话的字面语义。
Everyone knows that language can be used to express meaning, but it is not easy to define meaning. One problem is that there are several dimensions of meaning. Imagine that I ask you, “Can you give me an apple?” while looking at a bowl of apples on the table beside you. What I literally asked is whether you have the ability to give me an apple; this is the semantic meaning of what I said. Sometimes people will make an annoying joke by responding only to the semantic meaning of such a question; they’ll just answer, “Yes, I can.” But what I almost certainly want is for you to give me one of the apples next to you, and I expect you to know that this is what I want. This speaker’s meaning is what I intend to communicate, and it goes beyond the literal, semantic meaning of what I said.
语言学家研究语义和说话者的意思。我们先来看看语义。要理解语义,我们必须结合三个主要组成部分:句子使用的上下文、句子中单词的含义以及句子的形态和句法结构。例如,假设你对我说:
Linguists study both semantic meaning and speaker’s meaning. Let’s look at semantic meaning first. To understand semantic meaning, we have to bring together three main components: the context in which a sentence is used, the meanings of the words in the sentence, and its morphological and syntactic structure. For example, suppose you say to me:
| (1) |
我的狗在屋下追赶一只猫。 My dog chased a cat under the house. |
因为(1)包含代词my,所以它的部分含义取决于你说出了它。因为你说出了它,所以 my指的是你。因此,在某种程度上,一个句子的语义含义取决于 使用上下文——句子由特定的说话者在特定的时间向特定的对象说出的情形,等等。 (1)的语义含义还取决于单个词dog、chased、a、cat等的含义;因此,语义含义取决于英语词汇。此外,句子(1)的形态和句法结构对其含义至关重要。如果重新排列单词以形成句子A cat under the house chased my dog,它的意思就会不同。所以语义含义取决于句子的语法结构。
Because (1) contains the pronoun my, part of its meaning depends on the fact that you uttered it. Since you uttered it, my refers to you. So to some extent the semantic meaning of a sentence depends on the context of use – the situation in which the sentence was uttered, by a particular speaker, to a particular addressee, at a particular time, and so forth. The semantic meaning of (1) also depends on the meanings of the individual words dog, chased, a, cat, etc.; therefore, semantic meaning depends on the lexicon of English. In addition, the morphological and syntactic structure of sentence (1) is crucial to its meaning. If the words were rearranged to make the sentence A cat under the house chased my dog, it would mean something different. So semantic meaning depends on the grammatical structure of the sentence.
现在让我们思考一下说话者对(1)的意思。假设你知道我丢了我的猫,然后对我说(1)。在这种情况下,说话者的意思很可能是告诉我我的猫可能藏在房子下面,并建议我去那里找它。要理解这个意思从何而来,我们需要把两个部分结合起来。首先,语义当然是画面的一部分;你说你的狗在房子下面追赶一只猫和你建议我去房子下面找我丢的猫之间存在某种联系。但为了让我理解说话者的意思,我必须假设我们都知道我的猫不见了,你知道我想找到它,你也希望看到我的猫安全回家。这些是上下文的附加方面,有助于确定说话者的意思。
Now let’s think about the speaker’s meaning of (1). Suppose that you know I’ve lost my cat and you say (1) to me. In that case, it would be likely that your speaker’s meaning is to inform me that my cat may be hiding under the house, and to suggest that I go there to look for it. To understand where this meaning comes from, we need to bring together two components. First, the semantic meaning is certainly part of the picture; there is some kind of connection between your saying that your dog chased a cat under the house and your suggesting that I look for my lost cat under the house. But in order for me to understand your speaker’s meaning, I have to assume that we both know my cat is missing, that you know I want to find it, and that you want to see that my cat is safely back home. These are additional aspects of the context of use which help to determine your speaker’s meaning.
我们可以将这两种含义形象化如下:
We can visualize the two kinds of meaning as follows:
语义学着重研究词汇与语法、语义之间的联系。语用学关注的是使用语境与语义和说话者的 意义。
Semantics focuses on the link between the lexicon and the grammar and semantic meaning. Pragmatics focuses on the connection between context of use and both semantic and speaker’s meaning.
乍一看,字面意义的研究似乎是一个非常枯燥的课题。(当我们说某人“拘泥于字面意义”时,通常不是在夸赞。)但这种第一印象主要是因为我们假设所有语言在表达意义的方式上都和我们的语言一样。当我们意识到我们对各种语言中意义的表达方式知之甚少时,语义学就变得有趣了。考虑以下来自澳大利亚语言瓦尔皮瑞语的例子(讨论基于 Bittner 和 Hale 1995):
At first glance, the study of literal meaning may seem like a very dry subject. (When we say that somebody is “literal-minded,” it is not usually a compliment.) But this first impression is largely because we assume that all languages are like our own in how they express meaning. Semantics gets interesting when we realize how little we know about the ways in which meaning gets expressed in various languages. Consider the following example from the Australian language Warlpiri (discussion is based on Bittner and Hale 1995):
| (2) |
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此示例的逐字注释显示以下内容。第一个词是名词,意思是“狗”,并且具有特格后缀(作格),标记它与及物动词的主语相关。第二个词是助动词,表示现在时,以及第三人称(不是说话人或受话人)是该子句的主语,第一人称(说话人)是其宾语。第三个词是名词,表示“大”,标记的作格与“狗”相同。第四个词是动词,表示“追逐”,其后缀表示该句子不是关于过去的事情。
The word-by-word gloss of this example shows the following. The first word is a noun meaning ‘dog,’ and it has a particular case suffix (ergative case), which marks it as associated with the subject of a transitive verb. The second word is an auxiliary indicating present tense, as well as the facts that a third person (not the speaker or addressee) is the subject of the clause and the first person (the speaker) is its object. The third word is a noun meaning ‘big,’ marked with the same ergative case as ‘dog.’ The fourth word is a verb meaning ‘chase,’ and its suffix indicates that the sentence is not about the past.
瓦尔皮里语的语义中有很多谜题。例如,表示“大”的单词是名词。英语使用者可能认为形容词和名词是不同的,因为“大”是形容词,“狗”是名词。瓦尔皮里语中“大”是名词这一事实引发了许多关于词语含义的问题——例如,哪些概念可以用名词、形容词、动词等来表达?瓦尔皮里语的例子还向我们展示了将单词组合成短语和完整句子的过程的语义方面并不一定简单。“大狗”直观地是这个句子中的一个概念,它由“狗”和“大”两个词的组合来表达。但这两个词并不相邻,因为它们在英语和许多其他语言中必须是相邻的。相反,它们的关系是由它们都具有作格这一事实编码的后缀。
There are many puzzles in the semantics of Warlpiri. For example, the word meaning ‘big’ is a noun. English speakers might expect adjectives and nouns to be different, with ‘big’ being an adjective and ‘dog’ a noun. The fact that ‘big’ is a noun in Warlpiri raises a number of questions about the meanings of words – such as, what kinds of concepts can be expressed by nouns, by adjectives, by verbs, and so forth? The Warlpiri example also shows us that the semantic side of the process of putting words together into phrases and complete sentences is not necessarily simple. ‘Big dog’ is intuitively a single concept in this sentence, and it is expressed by the combination of the words for ‘dog’ and ‘big.’ But these two words are not adjacent to one another, as they would have to be in English and many other languages. Rather, their relation is encoded by the fact that they both have ergative suffixes.
瓦尔皮里语这个句子的另一个有趣特征是,它既可以表示“一只大狗在追我”,也可以表示“那只大狗在追我”。瓦尔皮里语没有限定词,因此无法用一个词来表达“a”和“the”之间的区别。相反,瓦尔皮里语使用者可以通过各种方式使一个意思或另一个意思更可能表达出来,比如单词的顺序((2)中给出的顺序只是这种语言中许多可能顺序之一)。事实上,许多语言都像瓦尔皮里语一样,没有单词来区分“a”和“the”(技术上称为明确性),从英语。语义概念在一种语言中可能非常重要,但在另一种语言中可能就不那么重要了。研究不同语言的语义学可以让我们了解语言完成谈论世界任务的多种方式。确定所有语言语义学的共同点有助于我们了解语言和人性的独特之处。
Yet another interesting feature of this Warlpiri sentence is that it can mean either ‘a big dog is chasing me’ or ‘the big dog is chasing me.’ Warlpiri lacks the category of determiner, and so the distinction between ‘a’ and ‘the’ is not expressed by a word. Instead, Warlpiri speakers can make one meaning or the other more likely by various means, such as the order of words (the order given in (2) is just one of many possible in this language). In fact, many languages are like Warlpiri in not having words to make the distinction between ‘a’ and ‘the’ (technically known as definiteness), and this might be quite surprising from the point of view of English. A semantic concept that might be quite fundamental to one language might be much less important in another. Studying the semantics of different languages shows us the great variety of ways in which languages can accomplish the task of talking about the world. Identifying what is common to the semantics of all languages helps us understand what is unique about language and human nature.
明确性: 明确名词短语选出说话者向听话人呈现的已知事物(或事物),而不明确名词短语则引入新事物(或事物)。在英语中,由the是明确名词短语,而由a是不明确名词短语。英语中还有其他类型的明确名词短语和不明确名词短语。例如,boththe相同。二。
Definiteness: A definite noun phrase picks out a particular thing (or things) which the speaker presents as known to the addressee, while an indefinite noun phrase introduces a new thing (or things). In English, noun phrases introduced by the are definite, while those introduced by a are indefinite. There are other kinds of definite and indefinite noun phrases in English as well. For example, both is definite, as can be seen by the fact that it means almost the same thing as the two.
最基本的语义概念描述了单词、短语和句子如何相互关联以及如何与世界关联。
The most fundamental semantic concepts describe how words, phrases, and sentences relate to each other and to the world.
这些概念让我们能够谈论意义。有了这些概念,我们就可以说出这样的话:“瓦尔皮里语句子(2)含糊不清;它可以表示一只大狗,也可以表示大狗在追我。”
These concepts allow us to talk about meaning. With them we can say things like “The Warlpiri sentence (2) is ambiguous; it can mean a big dog or the big dog is chasing me.”
您在前面的章节中了解到,语法(形态和句法)会产生新的单词、短语和句子——事实上,它们的数量是无限的。这给了我们无限数量的单词、短语和句子可以有意义。为了解释无限数量的语言如何有意义,以及我们作为语言使用者如何每天弄清楚新语言的含义,语义学家应用了组合性原理。
You learned in previous chapters that grammar (morphology and syntax) generate novel words, phrases, and sentences – in fact, an infinite number of them. This gives us an infinite number of words, phrases, and sentences that can have meaning. In order to explain how an infinite number of pieces of language can be meaningful, and how we, as language users, can figure out the meanings of new ones every day, semanticists apply the Principle of Compositionality.
组合性原则:任何语言单位的语义含义都是由其各部分的语义含义以及它们的组合方式决定的。
The Principle of Compositionality: The semantic meaning of any unit of language is determined by the semantic meanings of its parts along with the way they are put together.
根据组合性原理,像Mary LikeLiked You这样句子的意义由 (a) 组成句子的各个词素的意义 ( Mary、Like、You、“过去 ” ) 和 (b) 句子的形态和句法结构决定。组合性原理不仅适用于句子。它还意味着动词短语LikeLiked You的意义由其各部分的意义和动词短语的语法结构决定,而单词LikeLiked的意义由组成它的两个词素的意义 ( Like和-ed )决定。语义学的一个子领域称为组合语义学(或形式语义学)特别关注组合性原理的应用,因此形式语义学家研究个别语言和世界语言中出现的各种语法模式。形式语义学在 20 世纪 70 年代早期在语言学中发展起来,受到哲学家的影响,尤其是 理查德·蒙塔古(Montague 1974)。
According to the Principle of Compositionality, the meaning of a sentence like Mary liked you is determined by (a) the meanings of the individual morphemes that make it up (Mary, like, you, “past”) and (b) the morphological and syntactic structures of the sentence. The Principle of Compositionality doesn’t just apply to sentences. It also implies that the meaning of the verb phrase liked you is determined by the meanings of its parts and the grammatical structure of the verb phrase, and that the meaning of the word liked is determined by the meanings of the two morphemes that make it up (like and -ed). The subfield of semantics known as compositional semantics (or formal semantics) is especially concerned with how the Principle of Compositionality applies, and consequently formal semanticists study the variety of grammatical patterns which occur in individual languages and across the languages of the world. Formal semantics developed in linguistics during the early 1970s under the influence of philosophers, especially Richard Montague (Montague 1974).
有些短语是组合性的例外。成语是一种短语,其含义与组成它的单词的含义不同。换句话说,成语不是组合性的:keep an eye on X、get a handle on X和kick the bucket的含义并非完全来自其各部分的含义和它们组合的方式。成语的含义通常来自隐喻解释,这些解释经常迷失在历史的迷雾中,但get a handle on X 的情况相当清楚;人们可能会把手柄放在一个物理对象上,以便于携带,而理解某物,从隐喻的角度来说,就是能够在脑海中随身携带它。一旦人们已经知道这个成语的意思,选择 handle 就有意义了,但第一次听到成语时,理解它可能会非常困难。我们通常需要帮助才能理解一个新的成语,一旦我们理解了它,我们就会把它的意思作为一个完整的模式或块来记住。英语或其他语言中有哪些你熟悉的习语?你怎么知道它们是什么?意思是?
There are some phrases which are exceptions to compositionality. An idiom is a phrase whose meaning is not what you’d expect given the meanings of the words making it up. In other words, idioms are not compositional: keep an eye on X, get a handle on X, and kick the bucket do not get their meaning exclusively from the meanings of their parts and the way they are put together. Idioms often get their meanings from metaphorical interpretations, often lost in the mists of history, but the case of get a handle on X is fairly clear; one might put a handle on a physical object to make it easier to carry, and to understand something is, metaphorically, to be able to carry it around in one’s mind. Once one already knows what this idiom means, the choice of handle makes sense, but it can be very difficult to understand an idiom the first time one hears it. We typically need help to understand a new idiom, and once we do understand it, we remember its meaning as a complete pattern, or chunk. What are some other idioms in English or in another language which you are familiar with? How do you know what they mean?
虽然组合性原则告诉我们,意义与其他意义相结合会产生新的意义,但它的作用有限。归根结底,语言的最小部分,即词素和单词,必须具有其本身的意义,而不是通过组合的方式得出的意义。词汇语义学就是对这些基本意义构成块的研究。在某些情况下,一个词的意义非常简单。例如,一个普通名字的意义只不过是它所指的个人。我们说孔子 指的是某位著名的中国哲学家。
While the principle of compositionality tells us that meanings are combined with other meanings to produce new meanings, it can only take us so far. Ultimately, the smallest pieces of language, morphemes and words, must have meanings in and of themselves, not derived in a compositional way. Lexical semantics is the study of these basic building blocks of meaning. In some cases, the meaning of a word is exceedingly simple. The meaning of an ordinary name, for example, is nothing other than the individual it refers to. We say that Confucius refers to a particular famous Chinese philosopher.
词汇语义通常没有那么简单。squirrel这个词乍一看似乎像Confucius一样容易描述,但实际上它的含义很模糊。 它可以描述某种动物(那只松鼠咬了我),它们的肉(我吃过一次松鼠),或整个物种(松鼠是啮齿动物)。 以这种方式具有多个相关含义的单词是多义性,事实上大多数单词在某种程度上都是多义的;只要看一下字典就知道了。(多义性是一种歧义。)
Lexical semantics is usually not so simple. The word squirrel seems at first as easy to describe as Confucius, but it is actually ambiguous. It can describe animals of a certain kind (that squirrel bit me), their meat (I ate squirrel once), or the species as a whole (the squirrel is a rodent). A word which has multiple related meanings in this way is polysemous, and in fact most words are polysemous to some extent; just glance at a dictionary. (Polysemy is a kind of ambiguity.)
孔子实际上是多义的。描述一下这个词的多个相关含义,并讨论它们是否代表了其他名字常见的多义模式。你能想到一个真正没有歧义的词吗?
Confucius is actually polysemous. Describe the multiple related meanings that this word has, and discuss whether they represent a pattern of polysemy common to other names. Can you think of any word which is truly unambiguous?
词汇语义学通常与多义性有关,特别是当一组词表现出相同的相关含义模式时。一个词能够将某物指代为有机体或食物,这在表示可用作食物的有机体的词语中很常见,但当我们有专门的食物术语时,这很不自然。因此,麋鹿可以煮成 elk,大米可以煮成 rice,但小牛要煮成 veal ,而不是 calf。(我们说veal阻止了calf的这种用法。)单个词能够指代特定物体以及该物体所属的物种或种类,这在英语中很常见;例如,我们可以用 book来描述单个物体(我把你的书丢了)或物体的种类(这本书是一项重要的发明)。
Lexical semantics is often concerned with polysemy, in particular when a group of words displays the same pattern of related meanings. The ability of a word to refer to a thing as organism or food is common to words for organisms which can serve as food, though it is quite unnatural when we have a dedicated term for the food. Thus, elk can be cooked as elk and rice can be cooked as rice, but calf is cooked as veal, not as calf. (We say that veal blocks this use of calf.) The ability of a single word to refer to a specific object and to the species or kind of which that object is a member is typical in English; for example, we can use book to describe an individual object (I lost your book) or the kind of thing (the book was an important invention).
在描述一个词的词汇语义时,我们通常可以区分两种含义。一方面,通常有一个原始的描述性成分。例如,松鼠的含义的核心是它指的是某些动物而不是其他动物。语言学家对这一方面的含义没有太多可以说的,只能在每种情况下指出它。研究词汇意义的第一个组成部分的主要兴趣在于,它使我们能够观察哪些基本的、不可分析的概念对特定语言的使用者来说是重要的。
In describing the lexical semantics of a word, we can typically distinguish two kinds of meaning. On the one hand, there is usually a primitive, descriptive component. For example, at the core of the meanings of squirrel is its reference to certain animals and not others. There is not much linguists can say about this aspect of meaning, except to point it out in each case. The main interest in studying this first component of lexical meaning is that it allows us to observe which basic, unanalyzable concepts are important to speakers of particular languages.
另一方面,与原始的描述性成分相比,我们经常有其他更系统的词汇意义成分。 松鼠的多义性是更大模式的一部分,这一事实表明,意义中有系统成分在起作用。当语言学家研究词汇语义时,他们主要对各种系统的词汇意义感兴趣。每种词素和词类都会为词汇语义提出不同的问题。在以下部分中,我们将讨论动词(主题角色)、逻辑词(真值条件)、形容词(量表)、副词(事件)的词汇语义,量词(数量之间的关系)、情态动词(可能世界)以及时态和体态词素(时间和事件)。
On the other hand, in contrast to the primitive, descriptive component, we often have other, more systematic components of lexical meaning. The fact that the polysemy of squirrel is part of a larger pattern shows that there are systematic components of meaning at work. When linguists study lexical semantics, they are mainly interested in systematic lexical meaning of various kinds. Each category of morpheme and word raises different issues for lexical semantics. In the sections below, we’ll discuss the lexical semantics of verbs (thematic roles), logical words (truth conditions), adjectives (scales), adverbs (events), quantifiers (relations between quantities), modals (possible worlds), and tense and aspect morphemes (times and events).
简单句的意义由其各部分的意义决定。大多数句子由主语和谓语组成。在简单的英语句子中,主语是句子中 IP 节点下的第一个名词短语(或 DP),谓语是句子的动词短语。根据组合性原理,这种句子的意义由其主语的意义和谓语的意义决定。如上文所指出的,名称是指世界上具体的事物,其他简单的名词短语也类似:
The meaning of a simple sentence is determined from the meanings of its parts. Most sentences are composed of a subject and a predicate. In simple English sentences, the subject is the first noun phrase (or DP) under the IP node in a sentence, and the predicate is the verb phrase of the sentence. According to the Principle of Compositionality, the meaning of such a sentence is determined in terms of the meaning of its subject and the meaning of its predicate. As pointed out above, names refer to particular things in the world, and other simple noun phrases are similar:
埃尔维斯·普雷斯利、法国总统、她、我、那只狗
Elvis Presley, the President of France, she, I, that dog
谓语通常包含动词、形容词、名词或介词短语:
The predicate typically contains a verb, adjective, noun, or prepositional phrase:
简单谓词描述世界上的一组事物。例如,谓词 is happy描述某些事物(快乐的事物)而不描述其他事物。谓词可能根据使用环境描述不同的事物;例如,is happy如果在一天使用,可能描述一组人,而如果在第二天使用,则可能描述另一组人。当人们理解谓词的含义时,他们知道它可以描述哪些事物,以及它不能描述哪些事物。例如,我知道 is happy现在描述了婴儿本杰明(他在微笑),但它五分钟前并没有描述他(他在哭)。
A simple predicate describes a set of things in the world. For example, the predicate is happy describes some things (those which are happy) and not others. A predicate may describe different things depending on the context of use; for example, is happy may describe one set of people if used on one day, and a different set of people if used the next day. When someone understands the meaning of a predicate, they know what kinds of things it can describe, and what kinds of things it can’t. For example, I know that is happy describes baby Benjamin right now (he’s smiling) but it didn’t describe him five minutes ago (he was crying).
句子的意义称为命题。命题是一个完整的思想,一个可以是真也可以是假的陈述。如果谓语准确地描述了主语的指称,则命题为真。例如,句子(3)表达了这样的想法 (即命题):某个人——人们称他为摇滚之王——跑到街上:
The meaning of a sentence is called a proposition. A proposition is a complete thought, a statement which can be true or false. The proposition is true if the predicate accurately describes the referent of the subject. For example, sentence (3) expresses the thought (that is, proposition) that a certain person – the king of Rock and Roll, as they called him – ran down the street:
| (3) |
埃尔维斯·普雷斯利 (Elvis Presley) 沿着街道奔跑。 Elvis Presley ran down the street. |
语义学家通常用真值条件来描述命题。(3)的真值条件如下:如果埃尔维斯·普雷斯利沿着街道跑,则(3)为真,如果他没有跑,则为假。当然,这似乎很明显,因为它只是重述了一些你已经知道的东西,因为你懂英语。然而,真值条件很重要,因为如果我对你说(3)并且你相信我,它们就概括了你对世界的了解。真值条件不必听起来如此重复。如果你和我知道埃尔维斯叫亚伦,所讨论的街道是 Speedway,在南边,真值条件也可以表述为“亚伦在 Speedway 上向南跑”。真值条件是,本质,即句子所携带信息的总结。另一种理解真值条件的方法是考虑简单信号的含义,比如汽车的转向灯。打开左转向灯“意味着”司机将左转,如果她确实左转,她的信号就是“真”的(在这种情况下我们更愿意说“准确”)。在这方面,真值条件提供了一种很好的理解意义的方法。句子的意义应该用它的真值条件来思考,这一观点可以追溯到波兰逻辑学家阿尔弗雷德·塔斯基(塔斯基(1944年)。
Semanticists usually describe propositions in terms of truth conditions. The truth conditions of (3) are as follows: (3) is true if Elvis Presley ran down the street, and it’s false if he didn’t. This seems obvious, of course, because it simply recapitulates something which you already know because you understand English. However, the truth conditions are important because they encapsulate what you learn about the world if I say (3) to you and you believe me. Truth conditions don’t have to sound so tautological. If you and I know Elvis as Aaron and the street in question as Speedway, in the direction south, the truth conditions could just as well be stated as “Aaron ran south on Speedway.” Truth conditions are, in essence, a summary of the information carried by a sentence. Another way to see the point of truth conditions is to consider the meaning of a simple signal, like the turn signal on a car. Turning on the left blinker “means” that the driver will turn left, and her signal was “true” (we might rather say “accurate” in this situation) if she does in fact turn left. In this respect, the truth conditions offer a good way of conceiving of meaning. The idea that the meaning of a sentence should be thought of in terms of its truth conditions goes back to the Polish logician Alfred Tarski (Tarski 1944).
谓语通常除了包含动词、介词或形容词外,还包含一个或多个自变量。自变量是完成谓语含义所必需的元素;它们使谓语更接近表达完整的命题。例如,句子(4)中的动词hit有两个自变量,直接宾语the ball和主语Mary。
Often a predicate contains, in addition to a verb, preposition, or adjective, one or more arguments. Arguments are elements which are needed in order to complete the meaning of a predicate; they bring the predicate closer to expressing a complete proposition. For example, the verb hit in sentence (4) has two arguments, the direct object, the ball, and the subject, Mary.
| (4) |
玛丽击中了球。 Mary hit the ball. |
根据组合性原理,谓词hit the ball的意义基于hit和the ball 的意义。ball 指的是一个特定的事物(无论哪个球在使用上下文中是相关的)。通过与the ball结合, hit的意义更加完整。一旦它与the ball结合,我们就有了一个描述一组事物的谓词。这个谓词必须与一个主语放在一起,才能表达一个完整的主张。
According to the Principle of Compositionality, the meaning of the predicate hit the ball is based on the meanings of hit and the ball. The ball refers to a particular thing (whichever ball is relevant in the context of use). The meaning of hit is made more complete by combining with the ball. Once it combines with the ball, we have a predicate which describes a set of things. This predicate must be put together with a subject in order to express a complete proposition.
我们刚刚看到了简单句的意义是如何根据其各部分的意义确定的。思考这个过程的另一种常见方式是使用主题角色的概念(Gruber 1965、Fillmore 1968、Jackendoff 1987)。主题角色通常用于讨论描述动作的单词(如动词)的词汇语义。具体来说,主题角色描述主语和其他论元在动词所描述的动作中所扮演的角色。(更准确地说,主题角色是单词意义的一部分,它表明某个实体在该单词所描述的动作或关系中所扮演的角色。)一些常用的主题角色是施事者、受事者、主题、地点、来源和目标。例如,在(4)中,动词hit的部分含义与角色 <施事者, 受事者> 相关。当hit用于像(4)这样的句子中时,主题角色“施事者”分配给主语Mary,表示 Mary 是击球动作的“实施者”,而主题角色“受事者”分配给球,表示球是作为击球动作的一部分而受到的。以下是其他一些主题角色:
We have just seen how the meaning of a simple sentence is determined from the meanings of its parts. Another common way of thinking about this process uses the concept of a thematic role (Gruber 1965, Fillmore 1968, Jackendoff 1987). Thematic roles are often used to talk about the lexical semantics of words which describe actions, like verbs. In particular, thematic roles describe the roles which the subject and other arguments have in the action described by a verb. (More precisely, a thematic role is a part of a word’s meaning which indicates the role that some entity plays in the action or relation which that word describes.) Some commonly used thematic roles are agent, patient, theme, location, source, and goal. For example, in (4), part of the meaning of the verb hit is associated with the roles <agent, patient>. When hit is used in a sentence like (4), the thematic role of “agent” is assigned to Mary, the subject, indicating that Mary was the “doer” of the action of hitting, while the thematic role of “patient” is assigned to the ball, indicating that the ball was acted on as part of the action of hitting. Here are some other thematic roles:
与特定单词相关的主题角色集称为主题网格。以下是一些动词及其主题网格(用尖括号括起来)的示例:
The set of thematic roles associated with a particular word is called a thematic grid. Here are some examples of verbs with their thematic grids (enclosed in angled brackets):
| (5) |
艾伦把这本书寄给了玛丽。 Allen sent the book to Mary. 发送: <代理,主题,目标> send: <agent, theme, goal> |
| (6) |
玉米成熟了。 The corn ripened. 成熟: <主题> ripen: <theme> |
| (7) |
太阳使玉米成熟。 The sun ripened the corn. 成熟:<原因,主题> ripen: <cause, theme> |
请注意,动词ripen在(6)和(7)中有两个不同的主题网格,这说明了关于主题角色的一个重要观点。Ripen在(6)和(7)中扮演“主题”角色,因为我们将该动词所描述的从未成熟到成熟的变化隐喻地视为一种运动,但在(7) 中,太阳是这种运动的原因。 许多动词都有多个主题网格,我们可以根据动词定义中所具有的主题网格对它们进行分类。 例如,其他动词与ripen一样,既有 <主题> 网格,又有 <原因,主题> 网格(例如break、redden)。 语言学家有兴趣研究哪些动词与哪些主题网格相关联——既包括单一语言(如英语)也包括跨语言——因为这些模式可以告诉我们更多关于这些词的含义在我们脑海中是如何呈现的。例如, (6) -(7)中ripen所示的模式表明,我们的思维可以利用可以用 CAUSE 表达的“一段”含义。从历史上看,英语使用者采用 CAUSE+V 的过程将动词ripen (如(6)中所示)改变为新版本,即(7)中的ripen,其含义可以表示为 CAUSE+ ripen <theme>。有些语言,比如日语,有一个表示原因的词素,但在英语中,可以添加这一段含义而不改变单词的发音。像ripen这样的具有多个相关含义的词是多义的,而 CAUSE+V 这样的过程可以帮助解释它们如何变成多义的。
Notice that the verb ripen has two different thematic grids in (6) and (7), demonstrating an important point about thematic roles. Ripen has the role “theme” in (6) and (7) because we metaphorically view the change from unripe to ripe described by this verb as a kind of movement, but in (7) the sun is the cause of that movement. Many verbs have more than one thematic grid, and verbs can be classified according to which thematic grids they have as part of their definitions. For example, other verbs are like ripen in having both the <theme> grid and the <cause, theme> grid (e.g. break, redden). Linguists are interested in studying which verbs are associated with which thematic grids – both within a single language like English and across languages – because these patterns can tell us more about how these meanings of words are represented in our minds. For example, the pattern illustrated with ripen in (6)–(7) shows that our minds can make use of a “piece” of meaning that can be expressed as CAUSE. Historically, speakers of English employed a CAUSE+V process to change the verb ripen, as in (6), into a new version, ripen in (7), with a meaning which can be represented as CAUSE+ripen<theme>. Some languages, such as Japanese, have a morpheme meaning CAUSE, but in English this piece of meaning can be added without changing the pronunciation of the word. Words which, like ripen, have multiple related meanings are polysemous, and processes like CAUSE+V can help to explain how they become polysemous.
主题角色说明了词汇语义学和句法之间的联系,因为单词的含义通常会影响其如何融入句子的语法结构;例如,ripen可以有两种不同的主题角色模式,这一事实解释了为什么它在语法上可以带宾语或不带宾语使用。另一个例子是上面讨论的瓦尔皮里句子。“big”被表达为名词——其他含义也是如此,例如“多少”和“中间”,在英语使用者看来并不“像名词”——意味着这种语言的语法与英语的语法非常不同。瓦尔皮里语的例子说明了为什么词汇语义学家研究多种语言中单词的含义,既是为了找出不同语言中单词含义的相似之处,也是为了确定它们可能有何不同。
Thematic roles illustrate the connection between lexical semantics and syntax, because the meaning of a word often influences how it fits into the grammatical structure of the sentence; for example, the fact that ripen can have two different patterns of thematic roles explains why it can be used grammatically either with or without an object. Another example is the Warlpiri sentence discussed above. The fact that ‘big’ is expressed as a noun – as are other meanings, like ‘how many’ and ‘in the middle,’ which don’t seem “noun-like” to English speakers – implies that the grammar of this language will be very different from that of English. The Warlpiri example shows why lexical semanticists study the meanings of words in multiple languages, both to find out how word meanings are similar across languages and to determine how they may differ.
类似的含义在不同的语言中表达方式可能大不相同。在英语句子I like pasta中,主语I指的是喜欢某物的人,宾语pasta指的是我喜欢的东西。英语动词like 的主题网格为 <体验者,刺激物>。在许多语言中,喜欢某物的人在句子中作为间接宾语出现,如意大利语句子(8)。
Similar meanings can be expressed very differently in different languages. In the English sentence I like pasta, the subject I refers to the person who likes something, and the object pasta refers to the thing I like. The English verb like has the thematic grid <experiencer, stimulus>. In many languages, the person who likes something appears in the sentence as an indirect object, as in the Italian sentence (8).
| (8) |
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意大利语表达对事物的喜爱的方式与英语不同。意大利语中没有与likes等价的动词;最接近的是piacere,但它表达“喜欢者”和“喜欢的事物”之间的关系的方式截然不同。意大利语动词有一个主题网格<刺激,体验者>。在这方面,它类似于英语动词please,例如Pasta pleases me。然而,Piacere和please并不等价;体验者在意大利语动词中表示为间接宾语,在英语动词中表示为直接宾语。
Italian doesn’t express the liking of things in the same way as English does. There is no verb equivalent to likes in Italian; piacere comes closest, but it expresses the relationship between “liker” and “liked thing” quite differently. The Italian verb has a thematic grid <stimulus, experiencer>. In this way it is similar to the English verb please, as in Pasta pleases me. Piacere and please are not equivalent, however; the experiencer is expressed as an indirect object with the Italian verb and a direct object with the English one.
英语和意大利语对“爱”概念的表达也不同。在英语中,动词love的用法通常与like类似;我们可以说I love pasta as well as I love my wife。意大利语中表示“爱”的动词 ( amare ) 具有与英语动词love相同的主题网格,<体验者,刺激>,并且“爱人”在两种语言中都是主语:
English and Italian express the concept of “love” differently as well. In English, the verb love is often used in a way similar to like; we can say I love pasta as well as I love my wife. The Italian verb for ‘love’ (amare) has the same thematic grid as the English verb love, <experiencer, stimulus>, and the “lover” is the subject in both languages:
| (9) |
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然而, amare的含义比英语中的 amare 更狭窄、更严肃。用意大利语说Amo la pasta会很奇怪,表明对意大利面有很深的感情。意大利语中, like和love与对应的动词之间没有简单的对应关系。它们在某些方面相似,在其他方面不同,这是人们在不同语言中比较单词含义时的典型情况。语言可能会将意义空间(我们想要表达的思想范围)划分为不同的方式。
However, the meaning of amare is narrower and more serious than its English counterpart. To say Amo la pasta in Italian would be quite strange, indicating a serious emotional attachment to pasta. There is no simple correspondence between like and love and the corresponding verbs in Italian. They are similar in some ways and different in others, and this is the typical situation when one compares the meanings of words across different languages. Languages may divide up the space of meanings, the range of thoughts we want to express, in different ways.
语义问题在现实生活中可能很重要。Solan ( 2002 ) 讨论了一个有趣的例子,说明语义如何在法律法规的解释中发挥作用。他写道:“住在宾夕法尼亚州的 Raymond Moskal 会购买二手汽车,调低里程表,将不准确的里程读数连同其他所需信息一起发送到弗吉尼亚州,并从弗吉尼亚州获得带有错误里程的新所有权证书。然后,他会以高价将汽车卖给毫无戒心的顾客。他因违反禁止州际运输“虚假”证券的法规而被起诉和定罪。”简而言之,Moskal 获得了包含虚假信息的真实所有权证书。
Semantic issues can be important in real life. Solan (2002) discusses an interesting example of how semantics can play a role in the interpretation of legal statutes. He writes: “Raymond Moskal, who lived in Pennsylvania, would buy used automobiles, set back the odometers, send the inaccurate mileage readings to Virginia along with other required information, and receive new titles from Virginia with the incorrect mileage. He would then sell the cars for inflated prices to unsuspecting customers. He was prosecuted and convicted for violating a statute that prohibits the interstate transportation of ‘falsely made’ securities.” In short, Moskal got real titles that contained false information.
所涉及的法律如下(其他地方明确规定汽车所有权属于“证券”):
The law in question was the following (it is made clear elsewhere that car titles count as “securities”):
Whoever, with unlawful or fraudulent intent, transports in interstate or foreign commerce any falsely made, forged, altered, or counterfeited securities or tax stamps, knowing the same to have been falsely made, forged, altered, or counterfeited… Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(18 USC § 2314 (2001))
美国最高法院同意莫斯卡尔可以根据该法律受到惩罚,但斯卡利亚大法官基于“虚假制造”一词的含义提出了两点不同意见。一个原因与“虚假制造”一词在法律文件中的历史含义有关,另一个原因与其通常含义有关。斯卡利亚大法官表明,截至 1939 年该法规制定的 100 年间,法律文件中一直使用“虚假制造”来表示“伪造”或“假冒”。因此,似乎这个关键短语的含义已经发生了变化,至少在法律领域内,从法律制定之时到它适用于莫斯卡尔之时。斯卡利亚的另一个论点是,“虚假制造”一词在其通常含义中仅包括假冒的东西,而不包括包含虚假信息的真实文件。
The US Supreme Court agreed that Moskal could be punished under this law, but Justice Scalia dissented for two reasons based on the meaning of the phrase falsely made. One reason had to do with the historical meaning of the phrase falsely made in legal documents and the other had to do with its ordinary meaning. Justice Scalia showed that in the 100 years up to 1939, when the statute was written, legal documents had used falsely made to mean ‘forged’ or ‘counterfeit.’ Thus, it seems that the meaning of this crucial phrase had changed, at least within the world of law, between the time the law was written and the time it was applied to Moskal. Scalia’s other argument was that the phrase falsely made, in its ordinary meaning, includes only things that are counterfeit, not real documents that are made to contain false information.
在查看了当代英语数据库中该短语的用法后,索兰得出结论,斯卡利亚的普通含义论证是错误的。他指出,虚假指控通常意味着“包含虚假信息”,例如“当虚假指控 [虐待儿童] 时,其破坏性可能极大。”换句话说,虚假指控意味着该指控包含虚假信息,索兰通过类比假设虚假汽车所有权证书将是包含虚假信息的汽车所有权证书。
After looking at the usage of the phrase in a database of contemporary English, Solan concluded that Scalia’s ordinary meaning argument is wrong. He shows that falsely made typically means ‘made to include false information,’ as in “[W]hen falsely made, this accusation [child abuse] can be enormously destructive.” In other words, a falsely made accusation means that that accusation contained false information, and Solan assumes by analogy that a falsely made car title would be a car title containing false information.
到目前为止,我们关注的是简单句子的含义如何由其各部分的含义组成,但组合性原则也适用于由简单句子组合而成的更复杂的句子。可以使用诸如not、and、 and or 等词来修改和连接句子。这些词的含义传统上是用真值条件意义概念来解释的。例如,单词not反转了句子的真值条件,因此句子(10a)当且仅当(10b)为假时才为真,反之亦然。
So far, we have focused on how the meaning of a simple sentence is composed of the meanings of its parts, but the principle of compositionality also applies to more complex sentences made by combining simpler sentences. Sentences may be modified and connected using such words as not, and, and or. The meanings of these words are traditionally explained in terms of the truth conditional conception of meaning. For example, the word not reverses the truth conditions of a sentence, so that sentence (10a) is true if, and only if, (10b) is false, and vice versa.
| (10) |
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类似地,用“ and ”连接两个句子所得到的句子当且仅当两个组成句子为真时,该句子才为真。用“or ”连接两个句子所得到的句子当且仅当至少一个组成句子为真时,该句子才为真。
Similarly, a sentence which is made by joining two sentences with and is true if, and only if, the two component sentences are true. A sentence which is made by joining two sentences with or is true if, and only if, at least one of the component sentences is true.
| (11) |
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这种关于“不”、“与”和“或”含义的观点,历史上源自逻辑学领域,逻辑学是哲学的一部分。逻辑学的传统目标是解释哪些推理模式是有效的,“不”、“与”和“或”等词对于这一事业尤为重要。
This view of the meanings of not, and, and or is drawn historically from the field of logic, part of philosophy. The traditional goal of logic is to explain what patterns of reasoning are valid, and the words not, and, and or are among the words which are especially important for this enterprise.
在许多句子中,这些逻辑词的含义似乎超出了简单的真值条件所规定的范围。例如,句子(12)似乎在说 Elvis 在去游泳池 之前做了花生酱三明治:
In many sentences, the meanings of these logical words seem to be more than is specified by simple truth conditions. For example, sentence (12) seems to say that Elvis made the peanut butter sandwich before going to the pool:
| (12) |
猫王埃尔维斯·普雷斯利做了一份花生酱三明治,坐在泳池边。 Elvis Presley made a peanut butter sandwich and sat down by the pool. |
因此,人们可能会怀疑真值条件是否充分描述了这些逻辑词的含义。那些认为真值条件足够的人认为,(12)中的“之前”含义属于说话者含义,而不是语义含义,应该作为语用学的一部分来解释,而不是语义。
One might doubt, therefore, whether truth conditions give an adequate description of the meanings of these logical words. Those who think that truth conditions are adequate argue that the ‘before’ meaning in (12) belongs to speaker’s meaning, not semantic meaning, and should be explained as part of pragmatics, not semantics.
我们已经讨论了动词、其论元和主语的含义是如何通过主题角色结合在一起的。然而,除此之外,其他元素也可以对句子的含义做出贡献。例如,(13)中的斜体项不是论元:
We have discussed how the meanings of a verb, its arguments, and its subject are combined through thematic roles. Other elements besides these can contribute to the meaning of a sentence, however. For example, the italicized items in (13) are not arguments:
| (13) |
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(13a)中的副词、 (13b)中的介词短语、(13c)中的形容词以及(13d)中的关系从句不是论元,而是与其关联的短语中心词的修饰语。修饰语可以给短语增添意义,但并不是完成短语意义所必需的。例如,短语 the bagel本身就是完整的。(它指的是一种特定的百吉饼。)然而,虽然我们不需要形容词来表达完整的意义,但形容词肯定可以添加有用的额外信息。修饰形容词old在(13c)中提供了一些有用的额外信息;它让我们知道我们正在谈论的百吉饼是旧的。
The adverb in (13a), the prepositional phrase in (13b), the adjective in (13c), and the relative clause in (13d) are not arguments, but rather modifiers of the phrase heads they are associated with. Modifiers add meaning to a phrase, but are not needed to complete the meaning of that phrase. For example, the phrase the bagel is complete on its own. (It refers to a particular bagel.) Yet, while we don’t need an adjective to make a complete meaning, an adjective can certainly add useful extra information. The modifying adjective old provides some useful extra information in (13c); it lets us know that the bagel we’re talking about is old.
我们已经看到形容词和名词可以充当谓语;也就是说,它们描述事物的集合。当形容词修饰名词时,得到的形容词-名词组合本身就是谓语。在最简单的情况下,它只是描述那些由形容词和名词单独描述的事物,例如 一条活鱼和一种无色液体。短语一条活鱼描述的是那些既是活物又是鱼的事物。这样的形容词被称为交叉形容词。并非所有形容词都是交叉的。例如,形容词前学生中的前者并不描述既是former 和 a student。关系从句也是交叉的。在(13d)中,短语the bagel which Mary ate描述的是那些被 Mary 吃过的百吉饼。
We have already seen that adjectives and nouns may function as predicates; that is, they describe sets of things. When an adjective modifies a noun, the resulting adjective–noun combination is itself a predicate. In the simplest cases it simply describes those things which are described by both the adjective and noun individually, for example a living fish and a colorless liquid. The phrase a living fish describes those things which are both living and a fish. Such adjectives are called intersective. Not all adjectives are intersective. For example, the adjective former in a former student doesn’t describe someone who is both former and a student. Relative clauses are also intersective. In (13d), the phrase the bagel which Mary ate describes those things which are bagels and which were eaten by Mary.
形容词可以带参数,就像动词一样。(无论它们是修饰名词还是作为句子的主要谓语,都是如此。)例如,在短语proud of Mary中,名词短语Mary充当proud的参数。有些形容词可以带参数,这些参数指定它们描述的事物与量表的关系。尺度是一组有序的值,用于某些属性。例如,形容词old与年龄尺度相关,而这个尺度可以用年表示:<0 年、1 年、2 年、……>。(也可以用天、月或其他适当的时间单位来指定。)形容词old可以采用像ten years这样的参数来指定这个尺度上的值。所以如果我说John 是一个十岁的孩子,我会根据他的年龄在这个尺度上的情况来描述 John:他是年龄尺度上年龄为“十岁”的孩子之一。
Adjectives may take arguments, just like verbs. (This is true whether they modify a noun or serve as the main predicate of a sentence.) For example, in the phrase proud of Mary, the noun phrase Mary serves as an argument of proud. Some adjectives can take arguments which specify how the thing they describe relates to a scale. A scale is an ordered set of values for some property. For example, the adjective old relates to a scale of ages, and this scale might be expressed in years: <0 years, 1 year, 2 years, …>. (It could also be specified in days, months, or other appropriate units of time.) The adjective old may take an argument like ten years which specifies a value on this scale. So if I say John is a ten-year-old child, I describe John in terms of how his age falls on this scale: he is one of the children whose age measures “ten years” on the scale of ages.
形容词在它们所关联的量表类型上有所不同。例如,考虑 tall和full。这两个形容词都涉及量表,tall 是高度量表,而full 是体积量表。但两者之间存在差异:我们知道玻璃杯完全满是什么感觉,而 * completely tall则没有意义。词汇语义学家根据各自量表的属性解释了这种差异。full 的量表是封闭的(超过某个点某物就无法变得更满),而tall的量表是开放的(某物的高度没有概念上的限制)。封闭量表和开放量表之间的区别对于形容词的词汇语义至关重要。
Adjectives differ in the type of scale they are associated with. Consider, for example, tall and full. Both adjectives involve scales, tall a scale of height and full a scale of volume. But there is a difference between the two: we understand what it is for a glass to be completely full, while *completely tall makes no sense. Lexical semanticists have explained this difference in terms of properties of the respective scales. The scale for full is closed (there’s a point beyond which something cannot get more full), while the scale for tall is open (there’s no conceptual limit to how tall something can be). This distinction between closed and open scales is crucial to the lexical semantics of adjectives.
许多形容词表现出模糊性。如果一个词具有单一、一般的含义,而在特定的使用环境中该含义会变得更加具体,那么它就是模糊的。像old这样与量表相关的形容词如果未提及量表上的特定值,那么它就是模糊的。例如,句子John is old并没有说他有多大年纪;它说的是他的年龄大于某个未指定的级别,而这个级别必须从使用环境推断出来,而具体有多大年纪可能因我们谈论的内容而异。John is old可能在一种情况下表示他的年龄超过 40 岁(如果我们谈论的是一支职业运动队),或者在另一种情况下表示他年过 90(如果我们谈论的是一个退休社区)。其他形容词在与量表无关的方面也是模糊的。例如,形容词good可以将某物描述为道德上好的(一件好事)、美味可口的(一个好的馅饼)、适合某种用途的(一件适合舞会的漂亮衣服)等等。这些含义上的差异似乎在好坏程度的尺度上没有相互关联(尽管每个含义中可能都有各自的好坏程度)。通常很难区分模糊性和多义性。如上所述,多义词具有多个不同但相关的含义;而模糊性则相反,它描述的是单一的一般含义,在特定的使用环境中变得更具体。由于涉及不止一个含义,多义性是一种歧义,而模糊性则是不是。
Many adjectives display the property of vagueness. A word is vague if it has a single, general meaning, which becomes more specific in a particular context of use. Adjectives which, like old, relate to a scale are vague when they do not mention a particular value on the scale. For instance, the sentence John is old doesn’t say how old he is; it says that his age is greater than some unspecified level that has to be inferred from the context of use, and exactly how old that is can vary depending on what we’re talking about. John is old might indicate that his age is more than forty years in one situation (if we’re talking about a professional sports team) or that he’s over ninety in another (if we’re talking about a retirement community). Other adjectives are vague in ways that don’t relate to a scale. For example, the adjective good can describe something as morally good (a good deed), as tasty (a good pie), as appropriate for a given use (a good dress for the dance), and so forth. These differences in meaning don’t seem to relate to one another in terms of a scale of goodness (though there may be scales of goodness relevant within each one separately). It is often difficult to distinguish vagueness from polysemy. As mentioned above, polysemous words have multiple different, but related, meanings; vagueness, in contrast, describes a single general meaning which becomes more specific in a particular context of use. Since it involves more than one meaning, polysemy is a kind of ambiguity, but vagueness is not.
就像形容词修饰名词一样,副词修饰其他类型的单词和短语,包括动词和句子。许多副词可以修饰动词和句子,因为它们描述事件。使用事件概念描述句子含义的想法是由哲学家提出的唐纳德·戴维森(Davidson 1967)。事件是一个发生、发生的事情、一个动作。例如,(14a)可以改写为“发生了约翰散步的事件,这个事件发生在昨天”,而昨天则描述了这个事件发生在昨天。(14b)不包含副词,但它包含一个介词短语在花园里,其功能非常像副词。功能像副词的短语是副词。句子(14b)可以改写为,清楚地表明副词将事件描述为“发生了谢尔比吠叫的事件,这个事件发生在花园里”。
Just as adjectives modify nouns, adverbs modify other kinds of words and phrases, including verbs and sentences. Many adverbs can modify verbs and sentences because they describe events. The idea of describing the meanings of sentences using the notion of event was introduced by the philosopher Donald Davidson (Davidson 1967). An event is an occurrence, something that happens, an action. For example, (14a) can be paraphrased as “an event of John walking occurred, and this event took place yesterday,” and yesterday contributes the description of this event as having taken place yesterday. (14b) does not contain an adverb, but it does contain a prepositional phrase, in the garden, that functions very much like an adverb. A phrase which functions like an adverb is an adverbial. Sentence (14b) can be paraphrased in a way that makes clear that the adverbial describes an event as “an event of Shelby barking occurred, and this event took place in the garden.”
| (14) |
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(14)中所示的副词/副词类型类似于交叉形容词。就像一辆旧车描述既旧又车的东西一样,(14a)表示发生的事件既是“昨天”的事件,也是“约翰走路”的事件。许多语义学家认为,这种类型的副词和副词向我们表明,指代事件的能力是人类语言表达意义的一个基本方面。
The kind of adverb/adverbial illustrated in (14) is similar to an intersective adjective. Just as an old car describes things which are both old and a car, (14a) says that an event occurred which is both a “yesterday” event and a “John walking” event. Many semanticists believe that adverbs and adverbials of this type show us that the ability to refer to events is a fundamental aspect of how human language expresses meaning.
有些状语不是事件的交叉描述词:
Some adverbials are not intersective descriptors of events:
| (15) |
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在(15a)中,surprisingly描述了说话者对所发生的事情的态度。在(15b)中,intentionally描述了 Mary 撞车时的心理状态。换句话说,intentionally的含义与句子的主语密切相关。人类语言中有各种各样的副词类型,如何最好地理解它们仍然是一个悬而未决的问题全部。
In (15a), surprisingly says something about the speaker’s attitude toward what happened. In (15b), intentionally says something about Mary’s state of mind as she crashed the car. In other words, the meaning of intentionally is closely connected to the subject of the sentence. There is a wide variety of types of adverbials in human language, and it remains an open question how best to understand them all.
事件的概念也可以阐明主题角色的含义。例如,苏珊是苏珊扔球中的施动者,因为她对事件的发生负责。没有她,就不会有扔球。球是句子中的受事者,这也是因为它在事件中的作用。球是受事者,因为它作为事件的一部分受到作用并移动。作为练习,考虑事件的概念如何阐明其他主题角色,例如目标、地点和工具。
The concept of event also can clarify the meanings of thematic roles. For example, Susan is the agent in Susan threw the ball because she is responsible for the event taking place. Without her, there would be no throwing. The ball is the patient of the sentence, and this is due to its role in the event as well. The ball is the patient because it is acted upon, and moves, as part of this event. As an exercise, consider how the notion of event can clarify other thematic roles, such as goal, location, and instrument.
我们已经看到名词短语可以指代个人,也可以用作谓语。某些名词短语称为量词,例如,nobody、everyone、some dogs、three or four stones、much of the water on earth、most Dutch people、many young animal,它们在句法上可以充当论元(主语、宾语等),但它们不指代特定的对象或个体。这在nobody的情况下很明显,但它也适用于 others。当你谈论some dogs时,你并不是在谈论你可以走过去触摸的任何特定的一群狗(对于这个意思,你会使用those dogs或the dogs)。相反,量词用于创建表达某种意思的句子关于事物的数量(数字或数量)。例如,以下句子说有毛皮的哺乳动物的数量多于没有毛皮的哺乳动物的数量。
We have seen that noun phrases can refer to individuals and that they also can function as predicates. Certain noun phrases, called quantifiers – like nobody, everyone, some dogs, three or four stones, much of the water on earth, most Dutch people, many young animals – can function syntactically as arguments (subjects, objects, and so forth) but they do not refer to particular objects or individuals. This is obvious in the case of nobody, but it applies to the others as well. When you talk about some dogs, you’re not talking about any particular group of dogs you could walk over to and touch (for that meaning, you would use those dogs or the dogs). Rather, quantifiers are used to create sentences which say something about the quantities (numbers or amounts) of things. For example, the following sentence says that the number of mammals with fur is greater than the number of mammals without fur.
| (16) |
大多数哺乳动物都有毛皮。 Most mammals have fur. |
为了理解带有量词的句子的含义是如何构成的,我们可以将句子分为三个部分。量词通常是包含限定词的名词短语。限定词是“第一部分”,名词短语的其余部分称为限制词,是“第 2 部分”。限定词和限制词一起构成量词。“第 3 部分” 称为范围,是该句子的剩余部分:
To understand how the meaning of a sentence with a quantifier is built up compositionally, we can think of the sentence as divided into three parts. Quantifiers are typically noun phrases which contain a determiner. The determiner is “Part 1,” and the rest of the noun phrase, called the restrictor, is “Part 2.” Together, the determiner and restrictor form the quantifier. “Part 3,” called the scope, is the remainder of the sentence:
限制词和范围都是谓词,用于描述事物的集合。第 1 部分,即限定词,表示限制词描述的事物与范围描述的事物之间的关系,这种关系总是与数量有关。例如,在(16) 中, most表示限制词和范围描述的事物的数量大于限制词但范围未描述的事物的数量。
The restrictor and scope are predicates, describing sets of things. Part 1, the determiner, indicates a relationship between the things described by the restrictor and those described by the scope, and the relationship always has to do with quantities. For example, in (16) most says that the number of things which are described by both the restrictor and the scope is greater than the number of things described by the restrictor but not the scope.
“范围”一词并非仅用于量化;它通常指句子中某个单词或短语具有语义效果的部分。(17)中的例子表明,范围与形容词短语的含义相关:
The term “scope” is not used solely in connection with quantification; it refers generally to the part of a sentence over which some word or phrase has a semantic effect. The examples in (17) show that scope is relevant to the meaning of phrases with adjectives:
| (17) |
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fake的范围用括号表示, (17a)和(17b)之间的含义差异是由于fake的范围在第一个例子中是gun ,而在第二个例子中是old gun 。因此,在(17a)中,我们谈论的是一种设计成看起来像枪但实际上不是枪的旧东西。在(17b)中,我们谈论的是一种设计成看起来像旧枪但实际上不是旧枪的东西;它可能是枪,但如果是这样,它就不是旧枪。
The scope of fake is indicated by brackets, and the difference in meaning between (17a) and (17b) is due to the fact that the scope of fake is gun in the first example and old gun in the second. Therefore, in (17a) we are talking about an old thing which is designed to look like a gun, but which is not actually a gun. In (17b) we are talking about a thing which is designed to look like an old gun but isn’t an old gun; it might be a gun, but if so it isn’t an old one.
并非所有量词都是名词短语。例如,像always这样的副词量词可以量化时间,如下所示:
Not all quantifiers are noun phrases. For example, adverbial quantifiers like always can quantify over times, as in the following:
| (18) |
约翰总是乐于提供帮助。 John is always ready to help. |
句子(18)的意思类似于“在任何(相关)时间,约翰都愿意提供帮助。” 随着时间的推移进行量化并不是这种量词的唯一功能(与大多数人最初的想法相反)。 以下示例显示了这一点(Geach 1962):
Sentence (18) means something like “At all (relevant) times, John is ready to help.” Quantifying over times is not the only function of quantifiers of this type (contrary to what most people think at first). Examples like the following show this (Geach 1962):
| (19) |
如果一个农民有一头驴,他总是会殴打它。 If a farmer owns a donkey, he always beats it. |
这句话的意思并不是说养驴的农民 总是打他们的驴。而是说每个农民都打他所有的驴。在这种情况下例如,总是量化农民和驴子,而不是时间。量词是一个复杂的话题,也是许多研究的主题语言学家。
This sentence does not mean that farmers who own donkeys are beating their donkeys all the time. Rather, it means that every farmer beats all of the donkeys he owns. In this example, always quantifies over farmers and donkeys, not times. Quantifiers are a complex topic and the subject of much research by linguists.
如果一个句子包含多个带范围的元素,有时会出现范围歧义,这取决于两个元素中的哪一个被解释为在另一个元素的范围内。考虑以下句子的两个含义:
If a sentence contains more than one scope-bearing element, sometimes there will be a scope ambiguity, depending on which of the two is interpreted as inside the scope of the other. Consider the two meanings of the following sentence:
我向每位学生展示了一个百吉饼。
I showed one bagel to every student.
第一个意思只涉及一个百吉饼:我把这个百吉饼给学生 1 看,再给学生 2 看,以此类推。第二个意思至少涉及和学生一样多的百吉饼:我把百吉饼 1 给学生 1 看,把百吉饼 2 给学生 2 看,以此类推。为了理解这个句子的意思,我们必须确定每个量词的限制器和范围。因为有两个量词,所以有两种可能的句子划分方式,取决于我们假设哪个量词更重要。如果我们假设一个百吉饼更重要,我们会得到下图,其中另一个量词,每个学生,成为一个百吉饼的一部分 范围:
The first meaning involves just one bagel: I showed this same bagel to student 1, student 2, and so on. The second meaning involves at least as many bagels as students: I showed bagel 1 to student 1, bagel 2 to student 2, and so on. In order to understand the meaning of this sentence, we have to identify the restrictor and the scope for each quantifier. Because there are two quantifiers, there are two possible ways of dividing the sentence up depending on which quantifier we assume is more important. If we assume one bagel is more important, we get the following diagram, where the other quantifier, every student, becomes part of one bagel’s scope:
我们说一个百吉饼的范围很广,而每个学生的范围很窄。此图表示一个百吉饼在解释中排在“第一位”(或具有“优先权”),而每个学生排在第二位,它对应于这样的含义:“你可以找到一个百吉饼,其以下说法是正确的:我把它给每个学生看了。”在句法和语义中,使用短语圣诞树来指示量词的范围是很常见的。这不能基于表面结构来实现,但如果将所有量词移到句子的开头,就可以做到这一点:
We say that one bagel has wide scope and every student has narrow scope. This diagram represents the idea that one bagel comes “first” in the interpretation (or has “priority”), while every student comes second, and it corresponds to a meaning like this: “You can find one bagel of which the following is true: I showed it to every student.” It is common within syntax and semantics to indicate the scope of quantifiers using phrase structure trees. This can’t be done based on the surface structure, but it can be if all of the quantifiers are moved to the beginning of the sentence:
(为简单起见,这棵树省略了很多细节,包括节点的所有标签和“我向 t 1展示了t 2 ”的内部结构。)表示所有量词的范围和其他含义方面的短语圣诞树被称为句子的逻辑形式(或LF)。
(For simplicity, a lot of detail has been left out of this tree, including all the labels for the nodes and the internal structure of “I showed t1 to t2.”) A phrase structure tree indicating the scopes of all the quantifiers and other aspects of meaning is known as the sentence’s Logical Form (or LF).
范围模糊性可以成为一种幽默,例如以下对不值得晋升的候选人的评价:“我可以向你保证,没有人比我更适合这份工作。”还有简·瓦格纳 (Jane Wagner) 的戏剧《寻找宇宙中智慧生命的迹象》中的这句台词: “我一生都想成为某个人。但现在我明白我应该更具体一点。”(这两个例子都来自语言学家 Beatrice Santorini,www.ling.upenn.edu/ -beatrice/humor/ contents.html。)
Scope ambiguity can be a source of humor, as in the following evaluation of a candidate not worthy of promotion: “I can assure you that no person would be better for the job.” And this line from Jane Wagner’s play The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe: “All my life I’ve always wanted to be somebody. But I see now I should have been more specific.” (Both examples are from linguist Beatrice Santorini, www.ling.upenn.edu/-beatrice/humor/contents.html.)
语义学家将单词和短语的语义分为两个主要子类型: 外延意义和内涵意义。到目前为止,我们关注的是外延意义,它比较简单。外延意义只与事物在特定时间点的实际情况有关。它们与此时此地有关。考虑以下两个名词短语:
Semanticists divide the semantic meanings of words and phrases into two main subtypes: extensional and intensional meaning. So far we have focused on extensional meanings, which are simpler. Extensional meanings have to do only with how things actually are at a given point in time. They have to do with the here-and-now. Consider the following two noun phrases:
| (20) |
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在我写这篇文章的时候,法国总统是弗朗索瓦·奥朗德,所以此时(20a)和(20b)指的是同一个人。它们具有相同的外延意义。
At the time I’m writing this the President of France is François Hollande, so at this point in time (20a) and (20b) refer to the same person. They have the same extensional meaning.
内涵意义与事物在其他时间或假设情况下可能如何有关。例如,在其他时间,过去和将来,(20a)和(20b)不会指同一个人。因此,它们的内涵意义不同。按照哲学家戈特洛布·弗雷格(Frege 1892),指称一词通常用于表示外延意义,而意义则用于表示内涵意义。在本节中,我们将讨论各种内涵意义。
Intensional meaning has to do with how things could be at other times or in hypothetical circumstances. For example, at other times, in the past and in the future, (20a) and (20b) will not refer to the same person. Their intensional meanings therefore differ. Following the philosopher Gottlob Frege (Frege 1892), the term reference is often used for extensional meaning, while sense is used for intensional meaning. In this section, we’ll look at a variety of intensional meanings.
在某些情况下,指称对于句子的意义来说非常重要,而在其他句子中意义则至关重要。这种差异可以通过替换测试来检测。考虑 (i) 中的填空句。人们可以用法国总统或弗朗索瓦·奥朗德来填充下划线的位置,在我写这篇文章的时候,这对句子是否正确没有影响。也就是说,因为 (ii) 在我写这篇文章的时候是正确的,所以 (iii) 也是正确的,反之亦然。
In some cases, reference is all that’s important to the sentence’s meaning, while in other sentences sense is crucial. This difference can be detected through a substitution test. Consider the fill-in-the-blank sentence in (i). One can fill the underlined position with The President of France or François Hollande, and at the time I’m writing this, it won’t make a difference to whether the sentence is true or not. That is, since (ii) is true at the time I’m writing this, so is (iii), and vice versa.
因为“法国总统”可以替换为弗朗索瓦·奥朗德,反之亦然,而不会改变句子的真假,所以我们将这些句子归类为外延句子。
Because The President of France can be substituted for François Hollande – and vice versa – without changing whether the sentence is true or false, we classify these sentences as extensional.
另一个填空句 (iv) 没有通过替代测试:
Another fill-in-the-blank sentence, (iv), fails the substitution test:
虽然 (v) 是真的(让我们假设),但 (vi) 不是。这种替代失败告诉我们主语的内涵意义与这个句子有关。具体来说,正是will所表示的将来时态使这些句子具有内涵性,因为将来时态使句子取决于将来会发生什么,而不仅仅是此时此地。
Though (v) is true (let us assume), (vi) is not. This failure of substitution tells us that the intensional meaning of the subject is relevant to this sentence. Specifically, it is the future tense indicated by will which makes these sentences intensional, because the future tense makes the sentence depend on what will occur in the future, not merely the here-and-now.
情态是指句子中意义的某些方面,这些方面使得句子与非现实有关——即,与事物可能如何的其他可能性有关。例如, (21)说约翰实际上善待动物,但(22)却不善待动物。(22)是关于约翰善待动物的可能性。 它说这种可能性 (在道德上) 优于另一种选择,即不善待动物。
Modality refers to aspects of meaning which cause sentences to be about the nonactual – that is, about alternative possibilities for how things could be. For example, (21) says that John is kind to animals in actuality, but (22) does not. (22) is about the mere possibility that John is kind to animals. It says that this possibility is (morally) better than the alternative, not being kind to animals.
| (21) |
约翰对动物很友善。 John is kind to animals. |
| (22) |
约翰应该善待动物。 John should be kind to animals. |
情态可以通过多种语法类别来表达:情态助动词(例如,应该、必须、可以、会)、名词(可能性、必要性、概率、要求)、形容词(可能、必要、很可能)以及其他方式。以下是一些情态句的例子:
Modality can be expressed through a variety of grammatical categories: modal auxiliary verbs (for example, should, must, can, would), nouns (possibility, necessity, probability, requirement), adjectives (possible, necessary, probable), as well as other means. Here are some examples of modal sentences:
| (23) |
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这些句子中的每一个都涉及事情可能出现的其他可能性。例如,(23b)要求我们考虑我在去车的路上丢了钥匙的可能性。
Each of these sentences is about alternative possibilities for how things could be. For example, (23b) asks us to consider the possibility that I dropped my keys on the way to the car.
语义学家经常用可能世界的概念来明确情态词的含义。可能世界有助于解释情态词的语义,因为它们提供了一种直接的方式来谈论事物可能存在的替代可能性。对于事物可能存在的每一种不同方式,我们都假设一个这样的可能世界。就可能世界的概念而言,(23b)告诉我们考虑我在去汽车的路上掉钥匙的可能世界。在那些世界中,根据句子的意思,钥匙在那些台阶上或街道上。同样,(23c)说,就大学的规定而言,只有每个人都学习亚美尼亚语的可能世界才是可以接受的。许多语义学家认为,可能世界对于理解情态是必要的,而且由于每种语言都可以表达情态,这表明,想象世界可能存在的替代方式(替代可能世界)的能力是人类使用语言能力的重要组成部分。如果事实确实如此,那么就会引发更深层次的问题:设想其他可能世界的能力是语言发展的先决条件,还是语言发展的结果,或者是与语言共同进化的东西?
Semanticists often make the meanings of modal words explicit in terms of the notion of possible world. Possible worlds help explain the semantics of modals because they provide a straightforward way of talking about alternative possibilities for how things could be. For every different way things could be, we assume a possible world like that. In terms of the concept of possible worlds, (23b) tells us to consider possible worlds in which I dropped my keys on the way to the car. In those worlds, according to the sentence, the keys are on the steps or the street. Likewise, (23c) says that only possible worlds in which everyone studies Armenian are acceptable as far as the university’s rules go. Many semanticists believe that possible worlds are needed to understand modality, and since every language can express modality, this suggests that the ability to imagine alternative ways that the world could be – alternative possible worlds – is an essential part of the human capacity to use language. If this is so, it raises even deeper questions: was the ability to conceive of alternative possible worlds a precondition of developing language, a result of developing language, or something which co-evolved with language?
情态动词可以按多种方式进行分类。认识论情态动词涉及我们所知道的事实。例如, (23a)中的“必须”是认识论的;它隐含地意味着“根据我所知道的,我一定把钥匙忘在车上了。”通过将 (23a) 与(24)(酒店停车场的标志) 进行对比,更容易看出(23a)是认识论的:
Modals can be categorized in various ways. Epistemic modals involve reference to facts that we know. For example, must in (23a) is epistemic; it implicitly means ‘given what I know, I must have left my keys in the car.’ It is easier to see the fact that (23a) is epistemic by contrasting it with (24), a sign in a hotel parking garage:
| (24) |
客人应将钥匙留在车内。 Guests should leave their keys in the car. |
(24)不是关于我们所知的;相反,它是关于程序或规则的,可以解释为“根据酒店的规则,客人应该把钥匙留在车里。”关于规则、是非、义务等的情态动词被称为道义情态动词。( 23a、 b和d)是认识论的,而(23c)是道义论的。
(24) is not about what we know; rather, it is about procedures or rules, and could be paraphrased as ‘given the rules of the hotel, guests should leave their keys in the car.’ Modals which are about rules, right and wrong, obligations, and so forth are known as deontic modals. (23a, b, and d) are epistemic, while (23c) is deontic.
时态和体态是与时间有关的语义类别。时态和体态可能导致句子涉及过去或将来,而不仅仅是现在,因此它们具有内涵意义。时态是指语言的特征,用于定位所描述的情况或事件的时间。英语有过去时态,如(25)所示,还有现在时态,如(26)所示:
Tense and aspect are semantic categories having to do with time. Tense and aspect may lead to a sentence being about the past or future, not only the present, and so they have intensional meaning. Tense refers to features of language which locate the situation or event being described in time. English has a past tense, illustrated in (25), and a present tense, illustrated in (26):
| (25) |
玛丽懂亚美尼亚语。 Mary knew Armenian. |
| (26) |
玛丽懂亚美尼亚语。 Mary knows Armenian. |
传统的语法老师认为英语也有将来时,用 will来表示,但很多语义学家对此表示怀疑。Will在语法上与must、can等情态助动词非常相似;此外,所谓的现在时也可以用来描述将来时:
Traditional grammar teachers say that English also has a future tense, indicated by will, but many semanticists doubt this. Will is grammatically very like a modal auxiliary verb, along with must, can, and the like; in addition, the so-called present tense can be used to describe the future:
| (27) |
玛丽明天开始她的新工作。 Mary starts her new job tomorrow. |
这些语义学家会说,will实际上是一个情态词,而不是时态词。
These semanticists would say that will is actually a modal word, not a tense word.
不管英语是否有将来时,有相当多的语言(例如日语)只有两种时态,即过去时和非过去时。还有些语言(如中文)根本没有语法时态。当然,这些语言允许人们说出事件发生时间的所有内容。他们有能力说某个事件发生在过去、正在发生或将来会发生。例如,他们可能会使用副词(如昨天)或副词(过去)来清楚地表明事件发生在过去。在某些情况下,仅凭常识就足以判断某个事件是过去发生的;例如,如果有人在谈论孔子的行为,大多数人都会知道他们已经过去了。在这种情况下,不需要像英语那样使用明确的过去时。
Whether or not English has a future tense, there are quite a few languages (like Japanese, for example) which have only two tenses, past and nonpast. There are also languages (like Chinese) with no grammatical tense at all. Of course, these languages allow one to say everything that needs to be said about where an event takes place in time. They have the ability to say that an event took place in the past, is taking place in the present, or will take place in the future. For example, they may use an adverb (like yesterday) or adverbial (in the past) to make clear that an event took place in the past. In some cases, common sense alone would be enough to determine that an event was past; if one is talking about the actions of Confucius, for example, most people would know they are past. In such a situation, the use of an explicit past tense, as in English, is not necessary.
体态是指语言中描述事件随时间如何展开的特征,如英语的进行时((28a)中的be+VERB-ing动词形式)和完成时((28b)中的have+VERB-en形式):
Aspect refers to features of language which describe how events unfold in time, like the English progressive (the be+VERB-ing verb form in (28a)) and perfect (the have+VERB-en form in (28b)):
| (28) |
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(28a)将诺亚画火车的事件描述为当前正在进行的事情,并没有说明他是否会完成这幅画;而(28b)将本睡着的事件描述为过去并且已经完成的事情。
(28a) describes the event of Noah’s drawing a picture of a train as ongoing at the present time and leaves open whether he’ll ever complete the picture, while (28b) describes the event of Ben falling asleep as past and completed.
在不同语言中,体貌意义既有细微的差异,也有显著的差异。例如,在英语中,不可能在现在时加完成时的句子中使用过去时副词,如昨天,但在许多语言中(如意大利语(29b))这些组合是可以接受的:
Across languages, aspectual meanings differ in both subtle and dramatic ways. For example, in English it is impossible to use a past adverb like yesterday with sentences in the present tense plus perfect aspect, but in many languages (like the Italian in (29b)) these kinds of combinations are acceptable:
| (29) |
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更引人注目的是,普通话中有许多体态词,它们表达的含义与英语完成时相似,但更精确。例如,(30a)中的“了”表示他已经老了,而(31a)中的“过”表示他有过吃猪脚的经历。虽然这两种情况都可以用英语的完成时翻译,但将这两个例子中的“了”和“过”颠倒过来(如(30b)和(31b))会导致含义大不相同:(30b)表示“他以前老了”(但现在不老了),而(31b)表示“他吃过猪脚”。
More dramatically, Mandarin Chinese has a number of aspectual words which express meanings similar to, but more precise than, the English perfect. For example, le in (30a) indicates that he has become old, and guo in (31a) indicates that he has had the experience of eating pigs’ feet. Though both cases can be translated with the perfect in English, reversing le and guo in these examples (as in (30b) and (31b)) would lead to very different for meanings: (30b) means ‘he’s been old before’ (but isn’t now), and (31b) would mean ‘he ate pigs’ feet.’
| (30) |
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| (31) |
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体类与体不同,体类与语法形式无关,而是根据句子所描述的情况随时间如何展开对完整句子进行分类。体类的概念可以追溯到亚里士多德,并在语义学中得到了广泛的研究。 (32)中给出了一些重要的体类:
Aspectual class differs from aspect in that it is not about grammatical forms but a classification of complete sentences with regard to how the situations they describe unfold in time. The notion of aspectual class goes back to Aristotle and has been extensively studied in semantics. Some important aspectual classes are given in (32):
| (32) |
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状态句是描述状态的句子,而非状态句可以称为事件句。事件句又可以分为成就、活动和业绩。
Statives are sentences which describe states, while nonstative sentences can be called eventive. Eventives can be further classified as achievements, activities, and accomplishments.
| b. |
成就:我们认为瞬间发生的变化 Achievements: changes which we conceive of as instantaneous 例如:鲍勃到了。(鲍勃的位置从“不在这里”变为“在这里”。) Examples: Bob arrived. (Bob’s position changes from “not-here” to “here.”) 玛丽亚是在中午出生的。 Maria was born at noon. |
| c. |
活动(或过程):随着时间而改变,没有特定的终点。 Activities (or processes): change over time, with no particular end point. 例子:鲍勃绕着圈子跑。(鲍勃的位置不断变化。) Examples: Bob ran around in circles. (Bob’s position changes constantly.) 玛丽亚哭了。 Maria cried. |
| d. |
成就:随着特定的终点而发生的改变。 Accomplishments: change with a particular end point. 示例:鲍勃跑了一英里。(终点是鲍勃完成一英里长的赛程的时间。) Examples: Bob ran one mile. (The end point is when Bob completes the mile- long course.) 玛丽亚建造了一座塔。 Maria built a tower. |
体类概念在很多方面都很重要。句子的体类有助于确定它可以与哪些修饰语一起出现。因此,活动可以与for(时间)一起发生状语,但不能与时间状语一起使用,如(33a)所示。状态不能是进行时,如(33b)所示。最后,当从句根据其与状态句还是非状态句结合而做出不同解释时,(33c -d)。
The concept of aspectual class is important in many ways. The aspectual class of a sentence helps determine what modifiers it can occur with. Thus, activities can occur with for (time) adverbials, but not with in (time) adverbials, as in (33a). States cannot be in the progressive, as seen in (33b). And finally, when clauses are interpreted differently based on whether they combine with state or non-state sentences, (33c–d).
| (33) |
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(33c)表示约翰到家时鲍勃已经很高了,而(33d)表示玛丽亚在他到家后就哭了。请注意,句子在所属的体类方面可以有一定的灵活性。因此,如果我们将鲍勃视为一个假装很高的小孩,那么 (33b)就是有意义的。在这种情况下, be tall并不意味着字面上很高,而是像“装高”一样。
(33c) means that Bob was already tall when John arrived home, while (33d) means that Maria cried just after he arrived. Notice that sentences can be somewhat flexible about the aspectual class they are in. Thus, (33b) makes sense if we think of Bob as a young child pretending to be tall. In that case, be tall doesn’t mean literally to be tall, but rather something like ‘act tall.’
了解体和体动词类是分析非标准方言语法的重要因素。非裔美国英语有一个动词体 — — be VERBing,如He be workin' — — 表达习惯性。在标准英语动词系统中,习惯性并不明显,AAE be VERBing与标准英语中的进行时不同,后者具有类似的结构。例如,打印机每分钟打印 100 页意味着打印机有能力每分钟打印 100 页,而不是打印机在特定时刻每分钟打印 100 页(Green 2002)。
Knowledge of aspect and aspectual verbal class can be an important factor in analyzing the grammar of nonstandard dialects. African American English has a verbal aspect – be VERBing, as in He be workin’ – that expresses habituality. Habituality is not distinguished in the standard English verbal system and AAE be VERBing is different from the progressive tense in standard English, which has a similar construction. For example, The printer be printing 100 pages per minute means that the printer has the capacity to print 100 pages per minute, not that the printer is at that particular moment printing 100 pages per minute (Green 2002).
我们不仅可以通过询问该方言的母语人士对句子含义的直觉来检验这一知识,还可以通过分析两种方言对体貌类别的限制来检验这一知识。在标准英语中,状态词(动词如 to know或谓词如to be tall)不能出现在进行时中。*She is wondering the answer毫无意义,而*She is being tall只在比喻上有意义,如“装高”。然而,在 AAE 中,状态词可以出现在be-VERBing体貌中;Mary be wondering the answer是一个完全符合语法的句子,意思是 Mary 一般或习惯性地知道答案。了解不同方言的体貌区别有助于语言学家识别出细微的含义区别,否则这些区别可能仅仅被认为是形态上的变化。
We can test this knowledge not only by asking native speakers of the dialect their intuition about the meaning of the sentence but also by analyzing restrictions on aspectual classes in the two dialects. In standard English, statives – verbs like to know, or predicates such as to be tall – cannot occur in the progressive tense. *She is knowing the answer is senseless, and *She is being tall only makes sense metaphorically, as ‘acting tall.’ However, in AAE, a stative can occur in the be-VERBing aspect; Mary be knowing the answer is a perfectly grammatical sentence, meaning that Mary generally or habitually knows the answer. Knowing the aspectual distinctions made by different dialects helps linguists identify subtle distinctions in meaning that might otherwise be thought of just as morphological variation.
语义学的两个主要分支是词汇语义学和组合语义学。词汇语义学试图解释单词的含义,而组合语义学则侧重于从简单含义构建更复杂含义的过程。在本节中,我们研究了一些可以从语义角度研究的语言类别,包括名称、修饰语、谓词和论元、量词和内涵元素,如情态动词、时态和体。我们还遇到了一些用于解释含义的理论思想,例如主题角色、可能世界和事件。语义学的目标是利用这些思想给出一个精确的理论,使我们能够理解任何人类语言的词汇和组合语义。然而,语言是复杂而多样的,因此实现这一目标还有很长的路要走。
The two main branches of semantics are lexical semantics and compositional semantics. Lexical semantics seeks to explain how words mean, while compositional semantics focuses on the process of building up more complex meanings from simpler ones. In this section, we have looked at some of the linguistic categories that can be studied from a semantic perspective, including names, modifiers, predicates and arguments, quantifiers, and intensional elements like modals, tense, and aspect. We have also encountered some theoretical ideas used to explain meaning, such as thematic roles, possible worlds, and events. The goal of semantics is to give a precise theory, using ideas like these, which allows us to understand the lexical and compositional semantics of any human language. Languages are complex and diverse, however, so achieving this goal is a long way off.
回想一下本章开头的语义学和语用学的定义。 语用学既涉及上下文与句子意义的关系,也涉及句子意义、上下文与说话人意义之间的关系。本节我们将重点讨论上下文如何影响语义意义。
Recall the definitions of semantics and pragmatics at the beginning of this chapter. Pragmatics concerns both the relationship between context of use and sentence meaning, and the relationships among sentence meaning, context of use, and speaker’s meaning. In this section we will focus on how the context of use contributes to semantic meaning.
指示性词语的语义直接取决于使用语境。一些简单的例子是“我”、“你”、“这里”和“现在”。代词“我”指说这句话的人(除了直接引用的情况,在引用的情况下,它指被引用的人);这里指说这句话的地方,等等。指示性类似于前面讨论过的模糊性现象。回想一下,形容词“old”可能是模糊的,因为什么算作“old”取决于谈论的内容。“谈论的内容”是使用语境的一个方面。另一个术语,指示性,也用于含义取决于使用环境的情况,并且 指示性和指示性经常互换使用。
Indexicals are words whose semantic meanings depend in a direct way on the context of use. Some simple examples are I, you, here, and now. The pronoun I refers to the person who says it (except in cases like direct quotes, where it refers to the person being quoted); the word here refers to the place where it is spoken, and so forth. Indexicality is similar to the phenomenon of vagueness, discussed earlier. Recall that adjectives like old can be vague, in that what counts as old depends on what is being talked about. “What is being talked about” is an aspect of context of use. Another term, deixis, is also used for cases in which meaning depends on context of use, and the terms deixis and indexicality are often used interchangeably.
“经典”指示词(例如“我”、“你”、“这里”和“现在”)与使用上下文严格相关;它们的指称完全取决于使用上下文。其他词语则更加灵活。它们有时从使用上下文中获得含义,但并非总是如此。一个例子是“她” 。在我们都看着一个小女孩的情况下,我可以说“她很可爱” 。在这种情况下,她会根据使用上下文来指代这个女孩。但是,她的指称也可以通过其他方式确定。在(34a)中,她可以从前一个句子中获得其含义,而在(34b)中,它可以在句子本身中获得其含义,即从“没有这个类别的女孩”中获得:
The “classic” indexicals (like I, you, here, and now) are strictly tied to the context of use; their reference depends solely on the context of use. Other words are more flexible. They sometimes get their meaning from the context of use, but not always. An example is she. I could say She is cute in a situation in which we are both looking at a baby girl. In that case, she would refer to this girl by virtue of the context of use. However, the reference of she can be determined in other ways. In (34a), she can get its meaning from the previous sentence, and in (34b) it can get its meaning within the sentence itself, from no girl in this class:
| (34) |
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当一个单词或短语从附近的其他语言片段中获取其含义时,两者之间的关系称为重复性。以这种方式获得含义的单词称为重复性,而赋予重复性 含义的语言片段称为其先行词。在(34a)中, she的先行词是that baby girl over there。
When a word or phrase picks up its meaning from some other piece of language nearby, the relationship between the two is called anaphora. A word which gets its meaning in this way is an anaphor, and the piece of language which gives the anaphor its meaning is its antecedent. In (34a), the antecedent of she is that baby girl over there.
指示性和首指性都表明,单词或短语的含义通常主要取决于使用的上下文。更重要的是,在不同的语言中,上下文的某些特征与指示性和首指性相关,而其他特征则无关。在英语中,对话的参与者、说出单词的地点和时间、正在谈论的内容以及明确提到的人和事物都是语言使用情况的重要语用特征。(还有许多其他特征。)研究特定语言中指示性表达的范围可以帮助我们确定哪些方面构成了说话者用来构建意义的上下文。不同语言在上下文方面的重要性可能有所不同;例如,某些语言(如韩语)明确编码了对话的正式程度。虽然正式程度对英语使用者很重要,但它与语法的相关性并不像韩语那样。
Both indexicality and anaphora demonstrate the fact that the meaning of a word or phrase often depends crucially on the context of use. More importantly, in different languages certain features of the context are relevant to indexicality and anaphora, while others are not. In English the participants in the conversation, the place and time at which a word is uttered, what is being talked about, and those people and things that have been explicitly mentioned are pragmatically important features of the situation in which language is used. (And there are many others.) Investigating the range of deictic expressions in a given language can help us determine what aspects of the situation comprise the context which speakers use to construct meaning. Languages may differ in which aspects of context are important to them; for example, some languages, such as Korean, explicitly encode the level of formality of the conversation. While level of formality is important to English speakers, it is not grammatically relevant in the same way as it is in Korean.
有几种类型的首语重复。有些类型的首语重复本质上是语义的,而另一些则是纯粹实用的。量词no girl in this class和(34b)中的she之间的关系就是纯粹语义首语重复的一个例子;这种首语重复的语义性质很明显,因为she的先行词在任何意义上都不是指某个特定的女孩。因此,我们不能说使用上下文告诉我们she指的是什么。相反,你可能会说she的含义是从其先行词的 (量化) 含义中衍生出来的。示例 (34a)说明了一种称为话语首语重复的实用首语重复。当首语重复和先行词在不同的句子中时,就会发生话语首语重复。它只适用于某些先行词。虽然 (i)–(iii) 中的先行词允许话语首语重复,但 (iv)–(v) 不允许:
There are several kinds of anaphora. Some types of anaphora are semantic in nature, while others are purely pragmatic. The relationship between the quantifier no girl in this class and she in (34b) is an example of purely semantic anaphora; the semantic nature of this anaphora is clear because the antecedent of she doesn’t in any sense refer to a particular girl. Therefore, we can’t say that the context of use tells us what she refers to. Rather, you might say that the meaning of she is derived from the (quantificational) meaning of its antecedent. Example (34a) illustrates a kind of pragmatic anaphora called discourse anaphora. Discourse anaphora occurs when the anaphor and antecedent are in different sentences. It only works with certain antecedents. While the antecedents in (i)–(iii) allow discourse anaphora, (iv)–(v) do not:
前三个句子是可以接受的,因为这些情况下的先行词为她这个复指提供了指称。相比之下,no baby girl和each baby girl(在 (iv) 和 (v) 中)没有为她提供指称,因为它们是量词,这就是复指在这些句子中不起作用的原因例子。
The first three sentences are acceptable because the antecedents in these cases provide a reference for the anaphor she. In contrast, no baby girl and each baby girl (in (iv) and (v)) don’t provide a reference for she, since they are quantifiers, and this is why anaphora doesn’t work in these examples.
只有假设约翰在中午前哭了,句子“约翰在中午停止哭泣”才有意义。如果我对你说这句话,而你知道约翰根本没有哭,你会觉得我说的话不合时宜,或者你被误导了。我们说句子“约翰在中午停止哭泣” 预设了约翰在中午前哭了。许多单词、短语和结构都会产生预设。以下是一些句子后面带有预设(括号中)的示例:
The sentence John stopped crying at noon only makes sense if it is assumed that John was crying just before noon. If I say this to you, and you know that John had not been crying at all, you would feel that what I say is out of place or that you’d been misled. We say that the sentence John stopped crying at noon presupposes that John was crying just before noon. Many words, phrases, and structures create presuppositions. Here are some examples of sentences followed by their presuppositions (in parentheses):
| (35) |
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预设并非是说话者碰巧认为理所当然的事情。当说话者选择的词语表明他或她认为某事理所当然时,就会出现预设。例如,再次这个词的部分含义是,使用它的人表示他或她认为所谈论的任何事情都是理所当然的。因此,我们说(35c)预设了约翰以前哭过。( (35c)的说话者可能会认为其他事情理所当然,比如你应该安慰哭泣的人,但你不能仅通过查看(35c)本身来确定这一点。因此,我们不会说(35c)在语言学家的意义上预设了应该安慰哭泣的人。)
Presuppositions are not just anything which a speaker happens to take for granted. Presupposition occurs when a speaker’s choice of words shows that he or she is taking something for granted. For example, part of the meaning of the word again is that someone who uses it indicates that he/she is taking for granted that whatever is being talked about happened before. For this reason, we say that (35c) presupposes that John has cried before. (The speaker of (35c) might take other things for granted, such as the fact that you should comfort people who are crying, but you can’t determine this just by looking at (35c) itself. Therefore, we wouldn’t say that (35c) presupposes, in the linguist’s sense, that one should comfort crying people.)
预设通常用共同点的概念来理解,正如哲学家所讨论的那样罗伯特·斯塔尔纳克 (Stalnaker 1974 , 1978 )。共同点是对话参与者相互假设的一组命题。(他们不必真正相信这些命题,但至少要表现得像相信一样。)在任何正常对话中,许多事情都隐含在共同点中 — — 太阳每天早晨升起,说话者和听话者都活着,东西扔到空中会掉下来,等等。其他命题可能会因为明确陈述而成为共同点。例如,如果我对你说“我饿了”(你认为我是真诚的),从今以后“我饿了”这个命题就成为共同点的一部分;也就是说,我们都认为它是真的(直到发生变化 — — 例如,我吃了东西)。共同点是使用语境的重要组成部分,它有助于我们明确预设在使用诸如“约翰在中午停止哭泣”之类的句子中的作用:只有当共同点已经包含了约翰在中午之前哭泣的信息,或者可以在不引起争议的情况下添加该信息时,该句子才是合适的。
Presuppositions are often understood in terms of the notion of common ground, as discussed by the philosopher Robert Stalnaker (Stalnaker 1974, 1978). The common ground is the set of propositions which the participants in a conversation mutually assume. (They don’t have to actually believe these propositions, but they at least act as if they do.) In any normal conversation, many things are implicitly in the common ground – that the sun comes up every morning, that the speaker and the hearer are alive, that things fall down when you release them in the air, and so forth. Other propositions may get into the common ground because they are explicitly stated. For example, if I say to you “I’m hungry” (and you think I’m being sincere), henceforth the proposition that I’m hungry will be part of the common ground; that is, we will both assume it to be true (until something changes – for example, I eat something). The common ground is a major part of the context of use, and helps us make explicit the role of presupposition in the use of sentences like John stopped crying at noon: The sentence is only appropriate if the common ground already contains the information that John was crying just before noon or if that information can be added without arousing controversy.
在有关律师和侦探的电视节目中,预设常常被用来帮助狡猾的侦探。假设一名侦探怀疑 X 在新泽西州犯下谋杀罪,但没有明确证据表明 X 曾去过那里。侦探可能会随口问:“你去新泽西州的旅行怎么样?”这句话预设了嫌疑人去过那里,因此对这个问题的回答将提供 X 最近去过新泽西州的关键证据。(如果 X 很聪明,他会不回答就做出回应,也许会说“去新泽西州的什么旅行?”)
In television shows about lawyers and detectives, presupposition is often turned to the benefit of a crafty investigator. Suppose a detective suspects X of committing a murder in New Jersey, but has no clear evidence that X has traveled there. The detective might casually ask, “How was your trip to New Jersey?” This sentence presupposes that the suspect has been there, and so an answer to the question will provide the crucial evidence that X has recently been to New Jersey. (If X is smart, he will respond without answering, perhaps saying “What trip to New Jersey?”)
预设是一种强有力的说服策略。找出报纸社论、政治演讲和广告中的几种预设。将它们与你的同學。
Presuppositions are a powerful persuasive strategy. Identify several presuppositions in newspaper editorials, political speeches, and advertising. Compare them to presuppositions found by your classmates.
指示性和预设是语用学的一个方面,主要与以下方面的关系有关:语境和语义。在本节中,我们将探讨语用学的另一个主要子领域,即语义、语境和说话者含义之间的关系。
Indexicality and presupposition are aspects of pragmatics which mostly have to do with the relationship between context of use and semantic meaning. In this section, we’ll investigate the other major subdomain of pragmatics, the relationships among semantic meaning, context of use, and speaker’s meaning.
语义学从组合的角度看待意义:句子的意义由其各部分的意义构成。最小的部分从词汇中获取意义,然后根据注重句子语法结构的规则将这些意义组合在一起。然而,并非所有意义方面都能用这种自下而上的组合方法解释,与之互补的自上而下的意义观则侧重于语言使用者的意图。更准确地说,当 A 对 B 说某事时,A 希望 B 受到某种影响。如果 A 说“这是例如,如果 A 说“下雨了”,那么 A 可能想让 B 相信正在下雨(并可能打开雨伞或进屋)。这种观点有助于我们理解说话者含义的许多方面。
Semantics views meaning from the compositional perspective: the meaning of a sentence is built up from the meanings of its parts. The smallest parts get their meanings from the lexicon, and then these meanings get put together according to rules which pay attention to the grammatical structure of the sentence. However, not all aspects of meaning can be explained by this compositional “bottom-up” approach, and a complementary “top-down” view of meaning has focused on the intentions of language users. More precisely, when A says something to B, A intends for B to be affected in a certain way. If A says “It’s raining,” for example, A may intend for B to believe that it’s raining (and perhaps to open an umbrella or come inside). This perspective helps us understand many aspects of speaker’s meaning.
HP Grice 的会话含义理论(Grice 1957 , 1975 )最清楚地揭示了意义基于说话者的意图这一思想。很多时候,当某人说某事时,他或她的意思并不完全是单词的字面意思。也就是说,(说话者的)意思不同于(语义的)意思。例如,“有一只熊偷偷地跟在你身后!”的语义意义不涉及警告的概念;它只是报告一个事实。然而,警告很可能是说话者的意思的一部分。这种超出单词字面意思的“额外含义”是句子的含义。Grice 解释了在这种情况下如何通过假设一个所有说话者和听话者在互相交谈时都遵循的 合作原则:
The idea that meaning is based in the intentions of speakers is most clearly revealed in H. P. Grice’s theory of conversational implicature (Grice 1957, 1975). Very often, when someone says something, he or she doesn’t mean exactly what the words literally mean. That is, the (speaker’s) meaning differs from the (semantic) meaning. For example, the semantic meaning of “There’s a bear sneaking up behind you!” doesn’t involve the concept of warning; it just reports a fact. However, it’s quite likely that a warning is part of what the speaker means. This “extra meaning” which goes beyond what the words literally say is an implicature of the sentence. Grice explained how speaker’s meaning can be determined in such cases by positing a Cooperative Principle that all speakers and hearers assume when speaking to each other:
合作原则:说话人的意思可以根据语义以及说话人行为理性、合作的假设来计算。
Cooperative Principle: speaker’s meaning can be calculated on the basis of semantic meaning and the assumption that speakers are behaving rationally and cooperatively.
格赖斯将这一一般原则分解为四个对话准则来解释什么是理性和合作性:
Grice broke this general principle into four conversational maxims to explain what rationality and cooperativeness are:
质量准则:让你的贡献真实而非虚假。
数量准则:提供对话所需的信息,但仅此而已。
相关性准则:让你的贡献具有相关性。
礼仪准则:讲话时要清晰、有条理。
The maxim of Quality: make your contribution one that is true rather than false.
The maxim of Quantity: provide the information that is required for the purposes of the conversation, but no more.
The maxim of Relevance: make your contributions relevant.
The maxim of Manner: be clear and orderly in your talk.
这些准则并不是像交通法规那样需要遵守的规则。相反,它们是我们用来理解人们所说的话的假设。也就是说,我们假设人们在说话时遵循这四条准则,这有助于我们理解它们的含义。例如, 考虑(36) :
These maxims are not rules to be followed in the sense that traffic laws are. Rather, they are assumptions which we use to try to make sense of what people say. That is, we assume that people follow the four maxims when they talk, and this helps us figure out what they mean. Consider (36), for example:
| (36) |
班上有三名学生:玛丽、鲍勃和吉尔。 There are three students in the class: Mary, Bob, and Jill.
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在这次对话中,除了得出 Mary 和 Bob 通过了考试的结论外,A 还可能推断 Jill 没有通过。但是,B 从未说过 Jill 没有通过考试,那么 A 为什么会推断出这一点呢?通过假设 B 遵循四项准则,A 可以推断出 B 提供了尽可能多的真实信息,这些信息是必需的和相关的(质量、数量和相关性准则)。由于如果 Jill 真的通过了考试,那么说她通过了考试是有意义的,A 可以推断出 B 没有将 Jill 列入通过人员名单,因为 B 认为 Jill 没有通过考试(只要其他假设成立,例如 B 认识 Jill班上有)。此外,B 知道 A 会这样想,所以说“玛丽和鲍勃”,因为他知道 A 会得出吉尔没有通过的结论。这样一来,吉尔没有通过的想法就成为说话者理解 B 话语的一部分。也就是说,B 使用合作原则和准则来暗示吉尔没有通过。
In this conversation, in addition to concluding that Mary and Bob passed the exam, A is likely to infer that Jill didn’t. However, B never said that Jill didn’t pass the exam, so why would A infer this? By assuming that B is following the four maxims, A can figure that B gave as much true information as was required and relevant (maxims of Quality, Quantity, and Relevance). Since it would be relevant to say that Jill passed if she actually had passed, A can infer that B didn’t include Jill in the list of people who passed because B doesn’t think that Jill passed (so long as other assumptions hold, such as that B knows Jill is in the class). Moreover, B knows that A would figure this way, and so said “Mary and Bob” with the understanding that A would conclude that Jill didn’t pass. In this way, the idea that Jill didn’t pass becomes part of the speaker’s meaning of B’s utterance. That is, B uses the Cooperative Principle and maxims to implicate that Jill didn’t pass.
另一个隐含的例子在前面的例子(12)中已经暗示过:
Another example of implicature was hinted at earlier in example (12):
| (12) |
猫王埃尔维斯·普雷斯利做了一份花生酱三明治,坐在泳池边。 Elvis Presley made a peanut butter sandwich and sat down beside the pool. |
这句话的意思是 Elvis 在去游泳池之前做了花生酱三明治。这个“之前”的意思不是and的语义(由真值条件给出);它是一个隐含意义。根据格赖斯的方式准则,我们应该以有序的方式呈现信息,在大多数情况下,这包括按事件发生的顺序提及事件。因此,听众可以得出结论,说话者的意思是 Elvis 在游泳池边坐下之前做了三明治。
This sentence seems to mean that Elvis made the peanut butter sandwich before going to the pool. This ‘before’ meaning is not part of the semantic meaning of and (as given by truth conditions); it is an implicature. According to Grice’s maxim of Manner, we should present information in an orderly way, and in most cases that includes mentioning events in the order in which they occurred. Therefore, a hearer can conclude that the speaker means to say that Elvis made the sandwich before sitting down by the pool.
因为格赖斯格言不是像法律规则那样的严格规则,而是对说话者行为的灵活假设,所以它们可以被打破或藐视,以暗示进一步的含义。当说话者使用语言的方式明显违反格言时,就会发生违反格言的情况。例如,如果你问我是否认为你的新衬衫很有吸引力,我说“它可能很便宜”,我的回答似乎违反了相关性格言——我没有回答你的问题。然而,因为你假设,尽管表面上如此,我还是遵守了相关性,所以你会试图弄清楚我所说的话如何与相关性相关。由于我的话语通过提及你可能购买一件不吸引人的衬衫的原因来避免回答你的问题,你会推断我不喜欢这件衬衫。这个推断可以成为句子的隐含意义,即我说话者的一部分意义。
Because the Gricean maxims are not rigid rules, like rules of law, but are flexible assumptions about how speakers behave, they can be broken, or flouted, to implicate further meanings. Flouting a maxim occurs when a speaker uses language in a way which appears, in an obvious way, to violate a maxim. For example, if you ask me whether I think your new shirt is attractive, and I say “It was probably inexpensive,” my reply seems to violate the maxim of relevance – I didn’t answer your question. However, because you assume that, despite appearances, I am conforming to relevance, you try to figure out how what I said could be relevant. Since my utterance avoided answering your question by mentioning a reason why you might have bought an unattractive shirt, you will infer that I don’t like the shirt. This inference can become an implicature of the sentence, that is, part of my speaker’s meaning.
文化假设对于确定说话者的意思至关重要。例如,如果两个中国人正在一家法国餐厅里看甜点展示,其中一个人对另一个人说:“那个蛋挞不太甜”,她几乎肯定是想称赞蛋挞。她可能想暗示她的晚餐伙伴应该点一个蛋挞,而不是闪电泡芙或慕斯。说话者的意思部分源于这样一个事实:中国人普遍认为他们中的大多数人觉得西方的甜点太甜了。在其他一些群体中,同一句话(“那个蛋挞不太甜”)可能被解释为批评,而不是称赞。请注意,在这个例子中,说话者意思的文化特异性并不是中文的事实。无论这两个人说的是中文、法语还是英语,这种含义都可能出现。关键在于人们普遍认为他们这样的人不喜欢吃甜食。
Cultural assumptions can be crucial in determining speaker’s meaning. For example, if two Chinese people are looking at the dessert display in a French restaurant, and one says to the other, “That tart is not too sweet,” she almost certainly intends this comment as praise of the tart. She might intend to implicate that her dinner partner should order a tart, as opposed to the éclair or mousse. This speaker’s meaning arises, in part, from the fact that it is common knowledge among Chinese people that most of them find western desserts too sweet. Among some other groups, the same comment (“That tart is not too sweet”) could be interpreted as a criticism, rather than a compliment. Notice that the cultural specificity of the speaker’s meaning in this example is not a fact about the Chinese language. The implicature could arise whether the two people are speaking Chinese or French or English. What’s crucial is the common assumption that people like them don’t enjoy sweet desserts.
语用学发展的另一个重要人物是约翰·奥斯汀(Austin 1962)。他指出,当人们使用语言时,他们正在执行一种动作。他把这些动作称为言语行为。当牧师在婚礼上说“我现在宣布你们结为夫妇”时,很容易看出语言的“行为”本质。由于这句话由合适的人说出,订婚的夫妇就成了已婚夫妇。大多数言语行为并不是那么“正式”,但它们都依赖于说话者使用话语来表示他/她完成某种行动的意图,而听话人从话语中推断出该行动。当人们打赌、威胁和承诺、表示祝贺和道歉,或者发出命令或挑战时,他们都在使用语言来完成行动。考虑(37a)和(37b)的对比:
Another important figure in the development of pragmatics is John Austin (Austin 1962). He pointed out that when people use language, they are performing a kind of action. He called these actions speech acts. It’s easy to see the “act” nature of language when a minister says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife” in a wedding ceremony. By virtue of this sentence being said by an appropriate person, the engaged couple becomes a married couple. Most speech acts are not so “official,” but they all rely on the speaker using an utterance to signal his/her intention to accomplish some action and the hearer inferring that action from the utterance. When people make bets and threats and promises, offer congratulations and apologies, or issue orders or challenges, they are using language to accomplish actions. Consider the contrast between (37a) and (37b):
| (37) |
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(37a)表示承诺:如果你说了这句话,你就承诺了某事。如果你第二天没有去拜访,那个人可以抱怨你违背了诺言。 例子(37b)只是报告别人的承诺;你自己并没有承诺任何事情。
(37a) performs the act of promising: if you say it, you’ve promised something. If you don’t visit the next day, the person you said it to can complain that you broke your promise. Example (37b) simply reports a promise by somebody else; you haven’t promised anything yourself.
执行动作的句子,如(37a),被称为施事句,而其他句子(37b)被称为表述性。判断一个句子是否是表述性句子的一个好方法是,你是否可以在动词前插入hereby:“我在此承诺/挑战/打赌……”有意义,但“我在此行走/看见/喜欢……”没有意义。然而,正如奥斯汀指出的那样,即使是表述性句子也会执行某种动作; (37b)执行报告的动作。因此,表述性和表述性之间的区别可能不如所有句子都可用于执行各种动作这一想法重要。
Sentences which perform actions, like (37a), are known as performatives, while other sentences, (37b), are called constatives. A good test of whether a sentence is a performative is whether you can insert the word hereby before the verb: “I hereby promise/challenge/bet…” make sense, but “I hereby walk/see/like…” do not. As Austin pointed out, however, even constatives perform actions of some sort; (37b) performs the action of reporting her promise. Thus, the distinction between performatives and constatives may not be as important as the idea that all sentences can be used to perform actions of various sorts.
在试图理解句子可能执行的各种类型的行为时,奥斯汀提出了言语行为的三个“层次”:
In trying to understand the various types of acts that sentences may perform, Austin proposed three “levels” of speech act:
Locutionary acts: grammar-internal actions like articulating a certain sound, using a certain morpheme, referring to a particular person. (These are the “acts” which fall under phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. They are usually not of much interest to people studying pragmatics.)
Illocutionary acts: actions of communication like asserting a fact, asking a question, requesting an action, making a promise, or giving a warning.
Perlocutionary acts: actions which go beyond communication, like annoying, frightening, or tricking someone by what you tell them.
例如,假设说话者 A 对听众 B 说:
For example, suppose speaker A says to hearer B:
| (38) |
有一只熊偷偷地走到你身后! There’s a bear sneaking up behind you! |
在言外行为层面,A 说出单词there,并用单词you指代接收者(以及许多其他言外行为)。在言外行为层面,A 断言一个事实(有一只熊偷偷溜到 B 身后)并警告 B 他或她有危险。在言后行为层面,A 吓唬 B 并导致 B 逃跑。语言学家经常谈论句子的言外行为力量。言外行为力量是交流的一种类型说话者意图的表达。例如,(38)具有警告的言外力,而(37a)具有承诺的言外力,(37b)具有报告或断言的言外力。句子发出的上下文对于解释言语行为的言外力至关重要;如果你欠高利贷的人说“我保证明天去看你”,那么意图的言语行为可能是一种威胁(伪装成承诺)。
At the locutionary level, A utters the word there and refers to the addressee with the word you (among many other locutionary acts). At the illocutionary level, A asserts a fact (that there’s a bear sneaking up behind B) and warns B that he or she is in danger. At the perlocutionary level, A frightens B and causes B to run away. Linguists often speak of the illocutionary force of a sentence. The illocutionary force is the type of communicative intention that the speaker has. For example, (38) has the illocutionary force of warning, while (37a) has the force of promising and (37b) has the force of reporting or asserting. The context in which the sentence is uttered is crucial in interpreting the illocutionary force of a speech act; if a loan shark to whom you owe money says “I promise to visit tomorrow,” the speech act intended may be a threat (disguised as a promise).
语用学从根本上讲是关于语境会影响意义,包括语义意义和说话者的意义。语用学的核心主题是指示性、预设、含义和言语行为,但实际上语境影响意义的方式是无限的。有些情况甚至会让单词具有以前从未有过的含义。例如,几个家庭在一起吃晚饭,其中两个青少年正在秘密约会。他们各自找借口把晚餐留给父母,表达了想去做化学作业的愿望,他们在一起度过了愉快的时光。之后,他们开始说“你不需要做化学作业吗?”之类的话,以表示想一起溜走的愿望——这种句子有了新的语用意义。
Pragmatics is fundamentally about how the context of use contributes to meaning, both semantic meaning and speaker’s meaning. The core topics of pragmatics are indexicality, presupposition, implicature, and speech acts, but in reality there is no limit to the ways in which context can influence meaning. Situations can even develop which allow words to mean things they never meant before. For example, several families are having dinner together, and two of the teenagers are secretly dating. They each separately make an excuse to leave the dinner to their parents, expressing a wish to go work on their chemistry assignment, and they have an enjoyable time together. After this, they start to say things like “Don’t you need to work on your chemistry homework?” to indicate a desire to sneak off together – a new pragmatic meaning for sentences of that kind.
研究意义的语言学家大部分时间都花在上述类型的主题上。然而,这些语言学主题背后是有关意义本质的重要哲学问题。对于什么是意义这个最基本的问题,有两种基本观点。根据心理学观点,意义是概念、思想或其他某种精神实体。根据指称观点,意义是可以用语言描述或指称的世界(或可能世界)的方面。
Linguists who study meaning spend most of their time on the kinds of topics described above. However, underlying these linguistic topics are important philosophical issues concerning the nature of meaning. There are two fundamental perspectives on the very basic question, what is meaning? According to the psychological view, meanings are concepts, ideas, or some other sort of mental entity. According to the referential view, meanings are aspects of the world (or possible worlds) that can be described or referred to with language.
根据心理学的意义观,当我们研究语义时,我们研究的是语言使用者的头脑或大脑中存在的东西(例如 Jackendoff 1990、Lakoff 1987、Talmy 2000、Wierzbicka 1996 )。例如,我们可以说,像apple这样的简单单词的意义是语言使用者与该单词联系起来的概念。换句话说,让我们想到 apples 的东西就是apple这个词所象征的东西。当我们与他人交谈时,从根本上说,我们试图在他们的头脑中唤起与我们自己头脑中活跃的相同概念(或至少非常相似的概念)。
According to the psychological view of meaning, when we study semantics we are studying something that exists in the mind or brain of language users (e.g. Jackendoff 1990, Lakoff 1987, Talmy 2000, Wierzbicka 1996). We might say, for example, that the meaning of a simple word like apple is the concept which language users associate with the word. In other words, that which lets us think about apples is what is symbolized by the word apple. When we speak to others, fundamentally what we are trying to do is evoke in their minds the same concepts as we have active in our own mind (or very similar concepts, at least).
许多从事词汇语义学研究的语言学家都持心理学观点。在主题角色和词汇语义学部分,我们指出词汇语义学家旨在解释诸如多义词为何具有其含义以及不同语言的词语含义为何既有相似之处又有差异等问题。心理学观点的主要优势之一是它使我们能够解决此类问题。例如,在英语中,我们有很多词来表示不同类型的汽车,但表示不同类型的冰屋。这可能是因为英语使用者对汽车的接触比对冰屋的接触更多,对汽车的理解也更深。因此,他们会发展出一组比冰屋相关概念更丰富的与汽车相关的概念。这反过来又会使得与汽车相关的词汇比与冰屋相关的词汇发展得更多。这一观点的更复杂应用通常与语言变化和多义性有关。一个研究透彻的例子是英语单词over(例如 Tyler and Evans 2003 )。over的基本含义(“空间上方”)与其他各种含义相连(例如“另一边”,如房子在河上,或“完工”,如电影结束了)。基于心理学的意义理论旨在根据概念随着时间的推移如何从其基本含义扩展来解释这些其他含义。例如,如果你要去河的对岸,那么你很可能会在某个时刻到达河的上方。这可能会导致over具有新的含义,类似于“the other side of”。
Many linguists working in the field of lexical semantics take a psychological view. In the sections on thematic roles and lexical semantics, we noted that lexical semanticists aim to explain things like why polysemous words have the meanings they do and why different languages have both similarities and differences in what their words mean. One of the main strengths of the psychological view is that it allows us to address such questions. For example, in English we have lots of words for different kinds of cars but fewer words for different kinds of igloos. This is presumably because users of English have had more exposure to, and a better understanding of, cars than igloos. Therefore, they would have developed a richer group of car-related concepts than igloo-related ones. This in turn would allow the development of more car-words than igloo-words. More sophisticated applications of this perspective frequently have to do with language change and polysemy. A well-studied example of this is the English word over (e.g. Tyler and Evans 2003). The basic meaning of over (‘above in space’) is connected to various other meanings (e.g. ‘the other side of,’ as in The house is over the river, or ‘finished,’ as in The movie is over). A psychologically based theory of meaning would aim to explain these other meanings in terms of the ways in which the concept has been extended over time from its basic meaning. For example, if you’re going to go to the other side of a river, you are likely to be above the river at some point. This might lead to a new meaning for over which is similar to ‘the other side of.’
心理学的语义学理论可以但不必采用萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说。萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说以爱德华·萨丕尔和本杰明·李·沃尔夫的名字命名,认为我们的思维会受到所讲语言的影响。例如,沙漠社区所使用的语言可能很少有形容鱼的词语。根据萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说,这会使该社区的成员无法看到和理解鱼类之间的差异,而对于讲其他语言的人(住在水边的人)来说,这些差异是显而易见的。也就是说,他们对鱼的思考受到语言的限制;他们对鱼的思考不可能比他们谈论鱼的语言更丰富。
A psychological theory of semantics may, but need not, adopt the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, named after Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, states that what we can think is affected by the language we speak. For example, a language spoken by a community that lives in the desert may have few words for kinds of fish. According to the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, this would keep the members of this community from seeing and understanding differences among fish which are obvious to speakers of other languages (who live near water). That is, their thinking about fish is constrained by their language; their thinking about fish can be no richer than the language they have for talking about them.
在考虑萨丕尔—沃尔夫假说时,要牢记的一件非常重要的事是,语言是活的实体,会随着使用者不断变化的需求而变化。一种语言可能没有形容某种动物的词语,因为使用者很少见过这种动物,但如果这种动物在使用者居住的地方变得常见,他们就可以引入一个词语。他们可能会改变已有词语的含义,使用该语言的形态系统创造词语,或从另一种已有词语的语言中借用词语。字典会向您展示这些过程的许多例子。例如,computer这个词最初的意思是“进行计算的人”,后来被用来指新发明的机器。借用的一个例子是tomato,它来自纳瓦特尔语,用来指这种蔬菜在新大陆被“发现”。
A very important thing to keep in mind as you consider the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is that languages are living entities which change to meet their users’ changing needs. A language may have no word for a certain kind of animal because its speakers have rarely seen one, but if that animal becomes common where the speakers live, they can introduce a word. They might change the meaning of a word they already have, create a word using the language’s morphological system, or borrow a word from another language that already has one. A dictionary will show you many examples of these processes. For example, the word computer originally meant ‘one who does computations,’ and then was used to refer to the newly invented machine. An example of borrowing is tomato, from a Nahuatl word, to refer to the vegetable when it was “discovered” in the New World.
有人指出了心理学观点的几个问题。也许最重要的问题在于,一个人的话语含义更多地取决于其他人使用这些话语的方式,而不是一个人自己的概念。希拉里·普特南 (Hilary Putnam) 给出了一个著名的假想例子 (Putnam 1975 ):普特南听说过两种树,山毛榉和榆树,但他对它们一无所知,只知道它们是生长在北美东海岸的落叶乔木。在普特南的脑海中,没有任何东西可以区分山毛榉和榆树的含义。尽管如此,普特南在使用山毛榉这个词时指的是山毛榉,使用榆树时指的是榆树。如果你想象普特南走到你面前,指着一棵树问“那是山毛榉吗?”,这一点应该很清楚。如果这棵树确实是山毛榉,答案是“是”,但如果它是榆树,答案就是“不是”。由于普特南与山毛榉和榆树联系在一起的心理概念是相同的,这种意义上的差异不可能是因为他心里想的。普特南使用“山毛榉”这个词是因为这个词在英语中就是这个意思。也就是说,这个词的意义至少在很大程度上是由更大的语言社区和这个社区所处的环境决定的。居住。
Several problems with the psychological perspective have been pointed out. Perhaps the most important problems arise from the fact that what one’s words mean can depend more on the way other people use those words than on one’s own concepts. Hilary Putnam gives a famous hypothetical example (Putnam 1975): Putnam has heard of two kinds of trees, beeches and elms, but doesn’t know anything about either except that they are deciduous trees which grow on the east coast of North America. Nothing in Putnam’s mind distinguishes the meaning of beech from the meaning of elm. Nevertheless, Putnam means beech when he uses the word beech and means elm when he uses the word elm. This should be clear if you imagine Putnam walking up to you, pointing at a tree, and asking “Is that a beech?” If the tree is in fact a beech, the answer is “yes,” but if it’s an elm the answer is “no.” Since the mental concepts that Putnam associates with beech and elm are just alike, this difference in meaning can’t be due to what’s in his mind. Putnam’s use of the word beech means beech because that’s what the word means in English. That is, the meaning is determined, at least in large part, by the larger linguistic community and the environment in which this community resides.
关于意义本质的另一种主要观点是,意义是世界的特征。例如,像亚里士多德这样的名字的意义就是它在世界上所指的人。大多数组合语义学家以及一些词汇语义学家都遵循这种思维方式,它解决了普特南的问题:山毛榉描述世界上的一组事物,榆树描述另一组事物,而整个英语社区则决定哪一组是哪一组。
The other major perspective on the nature of meaning is that meanings are features of the world. For example, the meaning of a name like Aristotle is just the person it refers to in the world. This way of thinking is followed by most compositional semanticists as well as some lexical semanticists, and it solves Putnam’s problem: beech describes one set of things in the world, elm describes another, and the English-speaking community at large determines which is which.
指称观对于语言所描述的世界是否客观且独立于我们对它的思考持中立态度。一方面,从深层的形而上学意义上来说,山毛榉这一类别可能是“真实的”。在这种情况下,那些遵循指称观的人可以简单地说,山毛榉这个词命名了真正是山毛榉的东西。另一方面,山毛榉这一类别可能只是我们思维方式或文化的产物;我们称之为山毛榉的东西可能只是因为我们这样看待它们而形成一个群体。尽管如此,语言使用者群体仍然可以使用山毛榉这个词来描述这个群体的成员。
The referential view is neutral on whether the world, as described by language, is objective and independent of our thinking about it. On the one hand, it might be that the category of beeches is “real” in a deep metaphysical sense. In that case, those who follow the referential view could simply say that the word beech names the things which really are beeches. On the other hand, it might be that the category of beeches is only an artifact of the way our minds work or of our culture; the things we call beeches may only form a group because we see them that way. Still, the community of language users can employ the word beech to describe the members of this group.
指称观点也存在问题(Frege 1892)。在某些情况下,两个词可能指代世界上的同一件事物,但它们的含义似乎不同。例如,水和H 2 O指代同一件事物,但它们真的具有相同的含义吗?也许不是。假设我不知道 H 2 O 是水。我可能会认为H 2 O 有毒是一个正确的句子,而水无毒也是一个正确的句子。但是如果水和H 2 O含义相同,那么这两个句子应该互相矛盾。我怎么能认为同一件事物有毒而无毒呢?哲学家和语言学家一致认为这是一个难题。
There are problems for the referential view as well (Frege 1892). In some cases, two words may refer to the same things in the world, and yet they seem to differ in meaning. For example, water and H2O refer to the same thing, but do they really have the same meaning? Perhaps not. Suppose I don’t know that H2O is water. I might think that H2O is poisonous is a true sentence and that water is not poisonous is also true. But if water and H2O have the same meaning, the two sentences should contradict one another. How can I think the very same thing is poisonous and not? Philosophers and linguists agree that this is a difficult problem.
语义意义是单词、短语或句子的字面意义;说话者的意义是语言使用者想要通过其语言传达的意思。语义意义是根据组合性原理通过词汇意义、语法结构和使用语境的相互作用来表达。说话者的意义又来自语义意义和使用语境。语义学是研究语义意义的学科,它关注的是特定词语或语法特征对意义的贡献,语义学家从这个角度研究诸如个别词类、谓词、论元、量词等等。语用学旨在解释使用语境对语义意义的贡献方式,以及说话者在特定语境中使用语言传达特定说话者想要传达的意义的方式。
Semantic meaning is the literal meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence; speaker’s meaning is what a language user intends to communicate by his or her words. Semantic meaning is derived in accordance with the Principle of Compositionality through the interplay of lexical meaning, grammatical structure, and the context of use. Speaker’s meaning is in turn derived from the interaction between semantic meaning and the context of use. Semantics, the study of semantic meaning, focuses on the contribution which particular words or features of grammar make to meaning, and in this vein semanticists study such things as individual parts of speech, predicates, arguments, quantifiers, and so forth. Pragmatics aims to explain the ways in which context of use contributes to semantic meaning, and the ways in which speakers use language, in specific contexts, to convey the particular speaker’s meanings they want to convey.
文中概述的哪些基本语义关系和属性(同义词、蕴涵等)可以用以下哪项来举例说明?
Which of the basic semantic relations and properties outlined in the text (synonymy, entailment, etc.) are exemplified by the following?
按下列形容词是否相交和是否模糊进行分类:tall、previous、red、ideological、mere、ugly、even(如偶数)。
Classify the following adjectives according to whether they are intersective or not and whether they are vague or not: tall, previous, red, ideological, mere, ugly, even (as in even number).
解释下列句子的含义,重点关注量词的作用。确定限制词和范围,并说明如果句子为真,它们之间存在什么集合关系。
Explain the meanings of the following sentences, focusing on the role of quantifiers. Identify the restrictor and the scope, and say what set-relationship holds between them if the sentence is true.
在方框 4.3中,我们了解了如何通过将每个学生都放在一个百吉饼的范围内来得出“我给每个学生看了一个百吉饼”的一个含义。我们将通过反过来做,将一个百吉饼放在每个学生的范围内来得出另一个含义。绘制一个“框图”和一个逻辑形式树,类似于文本中表示的代表第二个含义的“框图”和逻辑形式树。
In Box 4.3, we saw how to arrive at one meaning of I showed one bagel to every student by putting every student inside the scope of one bagel. We would derive the other meaning by doing it the other way around, putting one bagel inside the scope of every student. Draw a “box diagram” and a Logical Form tree similar to those presented in the text which represent this second meaning.
以下是一些存在范围歧义的句子。对于每个句子,描述两个含义并指出哪两个单词或短语造成了歧义:
Here are some more sentences with scope ambiguities. For each, describe the two meanings and indicate which two words or phrases create the ambiguity:
为练习 4.5中句子的每个含义绘制框图和逻辑形式树。
Draw box diagrams and Logical Form trees for each meaning of the sentences in Exercise 4.5.
请给出下列副词量化时间的例子,以及量化普通物体的例子(文中的例子使用了驴):通常、经常、从不。
Give examples in which the following adverbs quantify over times, and examples where they quantify over ordinary objects (the example in the text used donkeys): usually, often, never.
下列哪些词有情态意义?哪些有体意义?
Which of the following words have modal meaning? Which have aspectual meaning?
完成,大概,不可能,开始,确定
finish, probably, impossible, beginning, certainty
将下列句子中的情态分类为认识论的、道义论的或“其他”。
Categorize the modality in the following sentences as epistemic, deontic, or “other.”
英语现在时有一些不寻常的特性:
The English present tense has some unusual properties:
句子 (a) 没什么特别,但句子 (b) 并不只是描述当前正在发生的事件。例子 (c) 相当奇怪。从句子的体类角度描述英语现在时的限制。(你需要举出比 (a)-(c) 更多的例子才能看清楚。)
Sentence (a) is unremarkable, but sentence (b) does not simply describe an event which is taking place at the present moment. Example (c) is quite strange. Describe the restrictions on the English present tense in terms of the aspectual classes of sentences. (You will need to come up with more examples than (a)–(c) to see the picture clearly.)
描述下列每个单词的含义,以清楚地说明它们如何作为指示词:nearby、return、tomorrow、above、local、ahead。
Describe the meaning of each of the following words in a way that makes clear how it can be indexical: nearby, return, tomorrow, above, local, ahead.
下列句子预设了什么?句子可能有一个或多个预设。
What do the following sentences presuppose? Sentences may have one or more presuppositions.
描述下列每个句子因违反而产生含义的上下文,并解释每种情况下违反了哪条准则。
Describe contexts in which each of the following sentences would create an implicature by flouting and explain which maxim is being flouted in each case.
检查报纸上的一封致编辑的信或一封垃圾邮件,圈出至少五个指示词。然后找出作者的隐含意义。哪条格赖斯格言(或格言)导致了这种隐含意义?为什么作者在这种情况下使用隐含意义,而不是明确地说出他或她的意思?
Examine a letter to the editor in a newspaper or a piece of junk mail, and circle at least five indexicals. Then identify an implicature of the writer. What Gricean maxim (or maxims) gives rise to this implicature? Why does the writer use implicature in this case, rather than explicitly saying what he or she means?
很难检验萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说是否正确,因为语言的差异通常与经验的差异相关。例如,说一种语言的人很少用词汇来描述不同种类的鱼,他们可能生活在一个很少看到鱼的地方。如果他们对鱼的看法与航海者对鱼的看法不同,这可能是因为他们缺乏与鱼打交道的经验,而不是他们的语言中缺乏词汇。讨论可以进行哪些类型的研究或实验来检验萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说。
It is difficult to test whether the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is correct because differences in language typically correlate with differences in experience. For example, people who speak a language with few words for different kinds of fish probably live in a place where they see few fish. If the way they think about fish is different from the way a seafaring people think about them, this could be due to their lack of experience with fish, rather than the lack of words in their language. Discuss what kinds of studies or experiments one could do to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
话语是句子之外的语言使用:人们如何在文本和语境中使用语言。话语分析师关注人们的实际话语,并试图找出是什么过程使这些话语呈现出来。通过话语,人们
Discourse is the use of language above and beyond the sentence: how people use language in texts and contexts. Discourse analysts focus on peoples’ actual utterances and try to figure out what processes make those utterances appear the way they do. Through discourse, people
本章通过对口头话语和书面话语的深入讨论和分析,概述了核心概念和方法。还介绍了口头话语的功能和连贯性模型。
This chapter provides an overview of central concepts and methods through in-depth discussion and analyses of spoken discourse and written discourse. Models of function and coherence in spoken discourse are also presented.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
我们日常生活中所做的几乎每件事都依赖于语言。事实上,很难想象如果没有语言,我们的世界会是什么样子。人们和社会的凝聚力在很大程度上取决于语言。我们需要语言来制定和执行法律;获取和分配有价值的资源;建立和维持个人和公共关系;教孩子我们的“存在”、“思考”和“做事”方式;进行学术研究;保存我们的过去并规划我们的未来。语言让我们能够交朋友(和敌人)、开玩笑和争论、庆祝快乐的日子和哀悼悲伤的日子。
Almost everything that we do in our everyday lives depends on language. In fact, it is hard to even imagine what our world would be like without language. So much of what keeps people and societies together depends crucially on language. We need language to make and enforce laws; get and distribute valued resources; create and maintain personal and public relationships; teach children our ways of “being,” “thinking,” and “doing”; engage in scholarly inquiry; preserve our past and plan our future. Language allows us to make friends (and enemies), joke and argue with each other, celebrate happy occasions and mourn sad ones.
但是语言有什么让我们能够参与如此广泛的活动呢?当然,声音、词素、词汇和句子都是其中的一部分。声音产生声学信号,这些信号结合起来传达命题被系统地排列成语法串。但接下来会发生什么?声音、词素、单词、句子或命题几乎从不单独出现。它们被组合在一起形成话语。
But what is there about language that lets us engage in so wide a range of activities? Certainly sounds, morphemes, lexical items, and sentences are part of the story. Sounds produce acoustic signals that combine to convey propositions that are systematically arranged into grammatical strings. But what happens then? A sound, morpheme, word, sentence, or proposition almost never occurs on its own. They are put together in discourse.
在本章中,我们将学习话语分析,这是语言学的一个分支,主要研究句子之上和之外的语言使用。“之上”和“之外”这两个术语听起来像是我们正在进行某种星际探险,但它们捕捉到了“话语”任务的不同特征。在其悠久的学术传统中,语言学大部分时间都将句子视为语言系统的极限。语言学家主要关注语言的形式(声音、词素、单词和句子);并没有探究语言在上下文中的使用方式。说话者、听话者和情境不在分析范围内。通过研究大于句子的单位,话语分析师可以“超越”句子。通过研究语言使用的世界的各个方面,话语分析师可以“超越”句子。与此同时,重要的是要记住,在现实世界中(以及在现实时间的匆忙中)使用语言的真实的人也在分析话语——从话语的特征中推断出意义。
In this chapter, we learn about discourse analysis, the branch of linguistics that focuses on language use above and beyond the sentence. The terms “above” and “beyond” may sound like we’re embarking on an interstellar expedition of some kind, but they capture different features of the “discourse” mission. For most of its long scholarly tradition, linguistics perceived the sentence as the limit of the language system. Linguists focused mainly on the forms of language (sounds, morphemes, word, and sentences); how language was used in context was not explored. Speakers, hearers, and situations were outside the realm of analysis. It is by examining units larger than sentences, then, that discourse analysts go “above” the sentence. And it is by examining aspects of the world in which language is used that discourse analysts go “beyond” the sentence. At the same time, it is important to remember that real people, using language in the real world (and in the rush of real time) are analyzing discourse as well – drawing inferences about meaning from features of the discourse.
由于其广泛涉及心理、社会和文化领域,话语分析借鉴了许多不同学科和语言学的各种传统。话语的构建涉及多个同时进行的过程。一些是安排句子和传达意义的语言过程。除了这些语言过程之外,还有将思想组织成言语形式的认知过程。信息的组织受到话语过程的影响,这些话语过程借鉴了互动角色(谁在说话?谁在听?)以及人与人之间更稳定的社会关系(例如,一个人在家庭中的角色或一个人的社会经济地位)。还有一些话语过程借鉴了隐性文化模型——由我们的长辈和同龄人——我们应该做什么,应该怎样做,应该成为怎样的人。
Because of its broad reach into the psychological, social, and cultural worlds, discourse analysis draws from many different disciplines and from a variety of traditions within linguistics. The construction of discourse involves several simultaneous processes. Some are the linguistic processes of arranging sentences and conveying meanings. Beyond these linguistic processes are cognitive processes that underlie the organization of thoughts into verbal form. The organization of information is influenced by discourse processes that draw on interactional roles (who is speaking? who is listening?) as well as more stable social relationships among people (for example, one’s role in a family or one’s socioeconomic status). Still other discourse processes draw upon implicit cultural models – displayed by our elders and our peers – of what we should do, how we should act, and what kinds of people we should be.
话语不同于随机的句子序列,因为它具有连贯性——它传达的意义大于其各部分之和。人们通常认为,某事物有自己的身份,超越了该实体中较小部分的身份。例如,文化不仅仅是我们所做的事:它是一种思考世界的方式,是一种在世界中定位自己的方式,指导着我们的行为方式。同样,社会也不仅仅是生活在其中的个人的总和。文化和社会并不是人类本能、个人驱动力和个性的巧合结果。同样,话语也不仅仅是将单独的句子相互添加。相反,各部分之间存在结构化关系,从而产生新的和不同的东西。
A discourse differs from a random sequence of sentences because it has coherence – it conveys meaning that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is not unusual to think of something as having its own identity beyond the identities of the smaller parts within that entity. For example, culture is more than what we do: it is a way of thinking about the world and a way of locating ourselves in that world that guides the way we act. Likewise, society is more than the sum total of the individuals who live in it. Cultures and societies are not simply the coincidental result of human instincts, individual drives and personalities. So, too, discourse is more than the addition of separate sentences to each other. Rather, there are structured relationships among the parts that result in something new and different.
话语是语言的一个单位,不仅仅是声音、词素、单词、从句和句子的简单堆积。我们很容易以这种方式来思考书面话语。小说、短篇故事、散文或诗歌具有一种身份,这种身份通过句子、思想或人物之间的模式化关系,通过节奏和韵律的重复或变化而发展。同样,当我们通过相互交谈来构建和共同构建 口头话语时,说话、思考、行动和互动的底层过程会结合在一起,产生“正在发生什么”的整体感觉。
Discourse is a unit of language above and beyond a mere accumulation of sounds, morphemes, words, clauses, and sentences. It is easy to think of a written discourse this way. A novel, short story, essay or poem has an identity that develops through patterned relationships among sentences, among ideas or characters, through repetition or variation of rhythm and rhyme. In the same way, when we construct and co-construct spoken discourse by talking to each other, underlying processes of speaking, thinking, acting, and interacting come together to produce an overall sense of “what is going on.”
对语言表现的分析以及由此得出的社会和文化推论提出了关于语言与其他人类系统关系的重要问题。语言是否形成一套独立的规则体系,在种类和功能上不同于人类思维和行为的其他规则?如果不是,那么它可能与哪些其他系统相关?语言与认知有关吗?它是否嵌入在社会规范和文化棱镜之中?语言知识在多大程度上属于我们日常生活中更广泛的知识体系的一部分,是语言学领域一直在讨论的话题。语言人类学家戴尔海姆斯(1974:79)认为,分析语言的结构(即形式主义)方法和功能方法在许多方面有所不同。
The analysis of linguistic performance – and the social and cultural inferences it allows – raises important questions about the relation of language to other human systems. Does language form a separate system of rules, different in kind and function from other rules of human thought and behavior? If not, then to what other systems could it be related? Is language related to cognition? Is it embedded within social norms and cultural prisms? The degree to which knowledge of language is part of a more inclusive body of knowledge through which we live our daily lives is an ongoing topic of discussion in the field of linguistics. The linguistic anthropologist Dell Hymes (1974: 79) suggests that the structural (i.e. formalist) and functional approaches to analyzing language differ in a number of ways.
结构方法 功能方法 重点关注语言(代码)的结构作为语法。 关注言语结构(如行为、事件)作为说话方式。 在进行任何(可选)语言使用分析之前,先分析语言结构。假设语言使用源于语言结构。 在分析语言结构之前先分析语言使用。假设语言结构和使用是一体的;语言使用的组织揭示了额外的结构特征。 假设语言最重要的功能是指称性,即用语言通过命题。 假设语言具有一系列功能,包括指称功能、文体功能和社会功能。 脱离使用环境来研究语言的元素和结构;忽视语言使用者的文化(行为、思维和存在方式)。 研究语言在使用环境中的元素和结构;关注语言使用者的文化(行为、思维和存在方式)。 假设语言结构与社会功能和用途无关。任何语言都可以(潜在地)服务于任何社会、文化或风格目的。 假设语言、变体和风格能够适应不同的情况、功能和用途,并为其使用者获得不同的社会价值。 假设语言是同质社区内的单一代码:每个说话者都复制统一的结构。 假设语言由多样化社区中的各种说话风格组成:每个说话者都会加入到有组织的多样性矩阵中。 假设世界各国语言的说话者、听众、行为、事件和社区都具有统一性。 试图探究世界语言中说话者、听众、行为、事件和社区的多样性。
Structural approach Functional approach Focuses on structure of language (a code) as a grammar. Focuses on structure of speech (as acts, events) as ways of speaking. Analyzes language structure before any (optional) analysis of language use. Assumes that language use derives from language structure. Analyzes language use before analysis of language structure. Assumes that language structure and use are integrated; organization of language use reveals additional structural features. Assumes that the most important function of language is referential, i.e. the use of language to describe the world through propositions. Assumes that language has a range of functions, including referential, stylistic, and social functions. Studies the elements and structures of language separately from contexts of use; ignores the culture (ways of acting, thinking, and being) of those using the language. Studies the elements and structures of language within their contexts of use; attends to the culture (ways of acting, thinking, and being) of those using the language. Assumes that language structure is independent of social functions and uses. Any language can (potentially) serve any social, cultural, or stylistic purpose. Assumes that languages, varieties, and styles can be adapted to different situations, functions, and uses, and gain different social values for their users. Assumes that language is a single code within a homogeneous community: each speaker replicates a uniform structure. Assumes that language comprises a repertoire of speech styles within a diverse community: each speaker adds to an organized matrix of diversity. Assumes the uniformity of speakers, hearers, actions, events, and communities across world languages. Seeks to investigate the diversity of speakers, hearers, actions, events, and communities within world languages.
大多数分析话语的语言学家至少部分地采用了功能性方法来研究语言。这并不奇怪:观察和分析人们如何使用语言自然会引发对语言所能完成的“工作”的兴趣——即语言使人们能够发挥的功能。
Most linguists who analyze discourse adopt, at least partially, a functional approach to language. This is not surprising: observing and analyzing what people do with language leads naturally to an interest in the “work” that language can do – the functions it enables people to perform.
话语分析始终是对语言使用的分析。这意味着研究话语的语言学家通常不会询问某种语言的母语人士对语法的直觉,也不会进行关于意义的思想实验。相反,话语分析师会研究人们在日常情况下相互交流(通过说或写)的实际样本。他们认为,话语的结构不是从人们对他们可能、能够或会说什么的直觉中发现的,而主要是通过分析人们说了什么来发现的。话语分析侧重于句子(以及其他单位,如动作和轮次)在人们在社会环境中相互交流时构建的文本中出现的模式。
Analysis of discourse is always analysis of language use. This means that linguists studying discourse usually do not ask native speakers of a language for their intuitions about grammaticality or engage in thought experiments about meaning. Rather, discourse analysts examine actual samples of people interacting with each other (by either speaking or writing) in everyday situations. They believe that the structure of discourse can be discovered not from peoples’ intuitions about what they might, could, or would say, but primarily from analyses of what people do say. Discourse analysis focuses on the patterns in which sentences (and other units such as acts and turns) appear in the texts that are constructed as people interact with one another in social contexts.
与其他语言学家一样,话语分析家认为语言形式受抽象的语言规则支配,这些规则是说话者能力的一部分。但语言规则中还包含一些指导语言表现和语言使用的原则。关于话语的知识是 Hymes ( 1974 ) 所说的交际能力的一部分——我们关于如何在不同的言语场合使用语言、如何在不同的言语活动中与不同的人互动、以及如何使用语言完成不同行为的隐性文化知识。
Like other linguists, discourse analysts believe that the form of language is governed by abstract linguistic rules that are part of speakers’ competence. But added to linguistic rules are principles that guide performance, the use of language. Knowledge about discourse is part of what Hymes (1974) has called communicative competence – our tacit cultural knowledge about how to use language in different speech situations, how to interact with different people engaged together in different speech events, and how to use language to perform different acts.
通过查看下面从一系列日常演讲事件中选取的话语示例,我们可以看到我们的语言知识如何与社会和文化生活知识相交叉:
We can see how our knowledge about language intersects with our knowledge about social and cultural life by taking a look at the discourse examples below, drawn from a collection of routine speech events:
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我们可以从对话的特征中推断出很多关于这段简短交谈的内容。盖尔和黛比似乎正在打电话;用升调(用?表示)说“你好”是美国人接电话的典型方式。请注意,黛比并没有问盖尔是谁(例如,嗨,盖尔在吗?),也没有表明自己的身份(嗨,我是黛比)。黛比没有说的话让我们可以推断出黛比和盖尔彼此很熟悉;黛比认出了盖尔的声音,而且似乎认为盖尔也会认出她的声音。我们还可以推断(从感叹词哦)盖尔的出现让黛比感到惊讶。而“你已经到家了”这句话表明黛比对盖尔的行程有所了解。
We can infer a great deal about what is going on in this brief exchange from features of the interchange. Gail and Debby seem to be talking on the phone; hello with rising intonation (represented by the ?) is typical of the way Americans answer the phone. Notice that Debby doesn’t ask for Gail (for example, Hi, is Gail there?), nor does she identify herself (Hi, this is Debby). What Debby doesn’t say, then, allows us to infer that Debby and Gail know each other pretty well; Debby recognizes Gail’s voice and seems to assume that Gail will recognize hers. We can also infer (from the exclamation oh) that Gail’s presence is surprising to Debby. And the statement you’re home already, shows that Debby knows something about Gail’s intended schedule.
我们日常生活中的话语片段向我们展示了我们——作为“事后”分析师和实时语言使用者——可以从日常语言使用中推断出“正在发生的事情”。同样,收集日常言语行为(如请求、赞美、道歉)和言语事件(如面对面的问候或打电话)的例子可以揭示它们的相同点和不同点。但是,虽然从我们自己的日常生活中收集话语例子很有价值,但它有几个局限性。首先,当我们听到一段有趣的话语并把它记下来时,我们通常无法捕捉到超过几句话或几个谈话轮次的话语片段。(谈话轮次是某人被允许和/或抓住机会发言的时间段。)其次,很难重建言语的细微差别,特别是当几个人互相交流时。当我们试图弄清楚对话者(正在交谈的人)如何解释正在发生的事情时,这些细微差别特别有用;关键信息可能存在于停顿、叹息、下行语调、简单的“哦”或“好吧”中,也可能存在于句子中的单词排列中(例如,我想要蛋糕而不是我想要的蛋糕)。我们不可能回忆起演讲事件(参与者假设正在发生的互动类型)或演讲情境(场合或遭遇类型)中出现的所有演讲。而且由于我们的记忆是会出错的,我们通常会根据对通常发生的事情的先验知识来填补细节。
Snippets of discourse from our daily lives show us how much we – as “after-the-fact” analysts and as real-time language users – can infer about “what is going on” from routine uses of language. Likewise, gathering examples of routine speech acts (such as requests, compliments, apologies) and speech events (such as face-to-face greetings or telephone openings) can reveal both their similarities and their differences. However, although collecting examples of discourse from our own everyday lives is valuable, it has several limitations. First, when we hear an interesting bit of discourse and then jot it down, we usually cannot capture stretches of discourse that are longer than a few sentences or turns at talk. (A turn at talk is the period of time in which someone is granted and/or takes the opportunity to speak.) Second, it is difficult to reconstruct the nuances of speech, particularly when several people are interacting with each other. These nuances are especially helpful when we try to figure out how it is that interlocutors (people talking to one another) interpret what is going on; crucial information can reside in a pause, a sigh, a downward intonation, a simple oh or well, or the arrangement of words in a sentence (for example, I want the cake versus The cake is what I want). It is impossible to recall all of the speech that appears throughout the course of a speech event (the type of interaction that participants assume is going on) or the speech situation (the type of occasion or encounter). And because our memories are fallible, we usually fill in details based on our prior knowledge of what typically happens.
语言人类学家戴尔·海姆斯 (Dell Hymes) 开创了语言学和人类学的一个分支学科,名为“传播民族志”。他劝说语言学家和人类学家分析三个相互嵌套的单元的社会、文化和语言属性:
Dell Hymes (a linguistic anthropologist) developed a subfield of linguistics and anthropology called “ethnography of communication.” He persuaded linguists and anthropologists to analyze the social, cultural, and linguistic properties of three units embedded in one another:
话语分析师通过多种方式来纠正仅依赖日常生活中听到的内容的局限性。他们这样做的方式部分取决于他们正在研究的主题,部分取决于他们对概括研究结果的兴趣。例如,对人们如何在工作中使用话语进行交流感兴趣的话语分析师经常在工作场所进行实地考察。他们在那里观察活动(例如会议、饮水机旁的聊天)并采访执行不同任务的人(例如经理、秘书)。然后他们可以对该工作场所提出概括,也许还可以对具有类似特征的其他工作场所提出概括。
Discourse analysts correct for the limitations of relying only upon what they hear in their everyday lives in several ways. The way that they do so depends partially upon the topic they are studying and partially upon their interest in generalizing their findings. For example, discourse analysts who are interested in how groups of people use discourse to communicate at work often do fieldwork in a workplace. There they observe activities (e.g. meetings, chats at the water cooler) and interview people who perform different tasks (e.g. managers, secretaries). They can then propose generalizations about that workplace and perhaps about other workplaces with similar characteristics.
其他话语分析家可能对话语的某个特定方面感兴趣:人们如何互相道歉?人们何时、何地以及为什么使用“喜欢”这个词(例如,我感觉“哦,不!”或“这就像是一件疯狂的事,很奇怪”)?然后,他们可能会依靠从各种各样的环境和场合录制的语音,较少关注获取代表特定社交环境中的一小部分人及其活动的样本,而更多地关注获取他们感兴趣的话语现象的足够例子。还有一些话语分析家可能对特定环境的话语或话语的一个方面不感兴趣,而是对一个话语的各个方面感兴趣。他们可能会深入研究一次对话的几分钟的所有细节,旨在了解两个人如何使用语言的许多不同方面来构建当时对他们有意义的话语。
Other discourse analysts may be interested in a particular aspect of discourse: how do people apologize to one another? When, where, and why do people use the word like (as in I’m like, “Oh no!” or It was like a crazy thing, like weird)? Then they may rely upon tape-recorded speech from a wide variety of settings and occasions, paying less attention to obtaining a sample that represents a subset of people and their activities in a particular social setting, and more attention to getting enough examples of the discourse phenomena in which they are interested. Still other discourse analysts might be interested not in the discourse of a particular setting, or one aspect of discourse, but in every aspect of only one discourse. They might delve into all the details of several minutes of a single conversation, aiming to understand how it is that two people use many different facets of language to construct a discourse that makes sense to them at that time.
无论研究类型如何,大多数话语分析员都依赖于以语音为主要交流媒介的人际互动的音频或视频记录。一旦语音被记录下来,分析员就必须制作一份记录稿——一份书面版本的谈话内容,其中要捕捉语言使用的诸多方面,从语音特征(如语调、音量和不流利程度)到互动方面(如谈话轮次之间的重叠),如果可能的话,还包括非语音行为方面(如凝视和手势)。口语对话的转录看起来与我们可能熟悉的其他脚本截然不同。例如,与大多数戏剧作品的脚本不同,语言学家的转录试图表明言语产生和互动的特征,通常使用框 5.2中关于转录惯例的符号。
Regardless of their type of inquiry, most discourse analysts rely upon audio or video-recordings of interactions between people in which speech is the main medium of communication. Once speech has been recorded, analysts have to then produce a transcript – a written version of what was said that captures numerous aspects of language use, ranging from features of speech (such as intonation, volume, and nonfluencies) to aspects of interaction (such as overlaps between turns at talk) and, if possible, aspects of nonvocal behavior (such as gaze and gesture). Transcriptions of spoken discourse look quite different than other scripts with which we might be familiar. For example, unlike most scripts for dramatic productions, linguists’ transcripts try to indicate features of speech production and interaction, often using notations like those in Box 5.2 on transcription conventions.
我总是随身带着一张纸,用来记录关于转录内容的观察、问题和想法。那些直接在电脑上转录的人可以同时打开两个文件,或者只是在转录文件的材料旁边插入注释(使用不同的字体或字号)。
I always keep a tablet of paper nearby to jot down observations, questions, and ideas about what I am transcribing. Those who transcribe right on the computer can keep two files open at the same time, or just insert comments (in a different font or type size) alongside the material in the transcription file.
转录对话是一种非常宝贵的分析工具。它冻结了时间中的瞬间,让话语分析师能够专注于对话的特定方面。但重要的是要记住,转录语音不可避免地是对对话中发生的部分内容的选择性和解释性表示。例如,Elinor Ochs ( 1979 ) 发现,传统的按顺序轮流说话的惯例歪曲了照顾者与儿童互动的合作性质;将成人和儿童的话语并排放在不同的栏目中,可以让观察者看到他们截然不同的角色——例如,照顾者如何适应幼儿正在发展的语言和理解能力的局限性。交际能力。
Transcribing a conversation is an invaluable analytic tool. It freezes moments in time and allows the discourse analyst to focus on particular aspects of the conversation. But it is important to remember that transcribing speech is, unavoidably, a selective and interpretive representation of a subset of what goes on in a conversation. For example, Elinor Ochs (1979) found that the traditional convention of ordering turns at talk one under the other misrepresented the collaborative nature of caregiver–child interactions; putting adult and child utterances in separate side-by-side columns allows the viewer to see their very different roles – e.g. how caregivers accommodate to the limitations of young children’s developing linguistic and communicative competence.
转录时,您会做出很多选择,具体取决于您对数据提出的问题。例如,您想如何将谈话流“分块”成几行文字记录?按说话者?按说话者和“T 单位”(独立子句及其依赖项)还是按更小的语调单位?您想如何表示单词的发音(giving、givin'、[g I v I n])?您想多仔细地计时停顿?您想捕捉哪些韵律特征(如振幅和音高)?
When you transcribe, you make lots of choices, depending on what questions you are asking about the data. For example, how do you want to “chunk” the stream of talk into lines of transcript? By speaker? By speaker and “T-units” (an independent clause and its dependencies) or smaller intonation units? How do you want to represent pronunciation of words (giving, givin’, [gIvIn])? How carefully do you want to time pauses? Which prosodic features (like amplitude and pitch) do you want to capture?
话语分析家使用各种符号来表示言语的各个方面,其中包括:
Discourse analysts use a variety of symbols to represent aspects of speech, including the following:
句末降调
sentence-final falling intonation
小句末尾的语调(“接下来还有更多”)
clause-final intonation (“more to come”)
感叹语调
exclamatory intonation
最后上升,就像是/否问题一样
final rise, as in a yes/no question
暂停半秒或更长时间
pause of 1/2 second or more
主应力
primary stress
强调
emphatic stress
重叠的言语。
overlapping speech.
没有明显的回合间停顿
no perceptible inter-turn pause
拉长元音
elongated vowel sound
喉塞音:声音突然中断
glottal stop: sound abruptly cut off
对话、引用的话
dialogue, quoted words
“插入语”语调:振幅和音高较低,加上语调轮廓平坦
“parenthetical” intonation: lower amplitude and pitch plus flattened intonation contour
笑声(h = 一秒)
laughter (h = one second)
在线的右侧表示在另一条路段之后继续该路段;在线的左侧表示在另一条路段之后继续前一条路段
at right of line indicates segment to be continued after another’s turn; at left of line indicates continuation of prior segment after another’s turn
听不清楚的话
inaudible utterance
转录员对所说的内容进行评论
transcriber comment on what is said
你可以在这篇文章的演讲摘录中看到许多这样的符号章。
You can see many of these symbols in the excerpts of discourse throughout this chapter.
转录口语对话是一项艰巨的任务,通常令人沮丧,更不用说耗时了:一些语言学家花了近十个小时转录仅仅一个小时的演讲。但幸运的是,最终结果是一份记录,他们可以在原始演讲多年后从不同角度进行分析。转录过程也非常有教育意义!通过反复聆听并尝试微调所说的内容的书面记录,语言学家通常最终会进行初步分析。
Transcribing spoken discourse is challenging and often frustrating, not to mention time-consuming: some linguists spend close to ten hours transcribing just one hour of speech. But fortunately, what results is a transcript that they can analyze from different angles years after the original speech. The process of transcribing is also very instructive! By listening – again and again – and trying to fine tune one’s written record of what is said, linguists often end up doing preliminary analyses.
我们通过说话或写作来创造话语。当然,这两个过程都依赖于语言,但它们的方式截然不同。毫不奇怪,它们的产品实现了通过非常不同的方式实现连贯性。我们可以通过比较以下摘录来简要地看到这一点,这些摘录来自吉娜告诉她的朋友苏的故事(在2a中)和她自己写的(在2b中)。在这两个摘录中,吉娜介绍了一个故事,讲述了她对木兰花的热爱如何使她陷入困境,当时她试图闻一朵花,但花却在她手中折断了。
We create discourse by speaking or writing. These two processes rely upon language, of course, but they do so in strikingly different ways. And not surprisingly, their products achieve coherence through very different means. We can see this briefly by comparing the following excerpts from a story that Gina tells her friend Sue (in 2a) and writes (in 2b). In both excerpts, Gina introduces a story about how her love for magnolia blossoms got her into trouble when she tried to smell a blossom that then snapped off in her hand.
| (2) |
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在两个版本中,吉娜都描述了一种特殊的花的香味,那就是木兰花。 在口语版本(2a)中,吉娜让苏参与她的描述;她们都使用短声调单位来简短地交谈。(声调单位是语音产生的部分,受时间、语调和音高变化的限制。)吉娜首先问苏是否闻过这种花香(用动词表示的感官体验)。在苏承认她闻过(嗯嗯)之后,吉娜给出了她自己对它们气味的评价(绝对美妙)。因为苏同意(是啊),然后加上她自己的描述(它们很棒),两个女人都共同沉浸在对木兰花的美好回忆中。
In both versions, Gina describes the scent of a particular flower, a magnolia blossom. In the spoken version (2a), Gina involves Sue in her description; they both use short tone units to take short turns at talk. (Tone units are segments of speech production that are bounded by changes in timing, intonation, and pitch.) Gina first asks Sue if she has ever smelled such a blossom (a sensory experience referred to by a verb). After Sue acknowledges that she has (Mmhmm), Gina presents her own assessment of their scent (Absolutely gorgeous). Because Sue agrees (Yeah), and then adds her own description (they’re great), both women have become jointly involved in the remembered pleasure of magnolia blossoms.
在 Gina 的书面版本(2b)中,木兰花香味的强度并没有在句子的轮回和短小单元中一点一点地展现出来。相反,香味被整合到一个复杂的句子中,这个复杂的句子中包含了大量其他信息。Gina 通过回忆她遇到这朵花的过程来介绍这朵花。香味在特定的时间出现(今年夏天的某个早晨)。某种香味(用名词表示静态事物)的存在(有)让 Gina 能够识别出一朵美丽的木兰花的存在。尽管两个片段中都呈现了一些相同的基本材料,但 Gina 表达和组织信息的方式不同。
In Gina’s written version (2b), the intensity of the magnolia scent is not unpacked, piece by piece, across turns and short units. Rather, the fragrance is integrated into a complex sentence in which a great deal of other information is packed. Gina introduces the flower by recalling the process through which she encountered it. The fragrance appears at a specific time (On one particular morning this summer). The existence (there was) of a certain fragrance (referred to as a static thing by a noun) allows Gina to recognize the presence of a glorious magnolia. Although some of the same basic material is presented in both segments, Gina phrases and organizes the information differently.
在以下章节中,我们将进一步了解口头和书面话语的属性以及如何分析这两种话语创作方式。我们比较两份记录来描述口头话语的几个不同方面,并解释一些基本概念和分析工具。然后,我们通过简要比较口头话语和书面话语样本来拓宽我们对话语过程和结构的理解。
In the following sections, we will learn more about the properties of spoken and written discourse and how to analyze both of these ways of creating discourse. We compare two transcripts to describe several different aspects of spoken discourse and explain some basic concepts and tools of analysis. We then broaden our understanding of discourse processes and structures by briefly comparing spoken discourse with samples of written discourse.
在口语中,不同类型的过程和不同的语言结构会迅速协同工作以产生连贯性。当我们互相交谈时,我们会尝试实现几个目标,有时是同时实现所有目标。例如,我们用言语表达想法,引入新信息,纠正我们所说的错误,轮流说话,思考他人,并执行行为。我们通过使用和连接一系列不同的单位来实现这些目标——言语行为、思想单位、谈话轮次以及句子。说话者预测他们的接收者需要什么(例如他们需要多少信息?)和想要什么(例如他们希望我有多礼貌?)。说话者根据对听众的“有根据的”猜测来设计他们所说的话。这些猜测基于过去的经验和当前的互动。
In spoken discourse, different kinds of processes – and different configurations of language – work rapidly together to produce coherence. When we speak to each other, we try to achieve several goals, sometimes all at the same time. For example, we verbalize thoughts, introduce new information, repair errors in what we say, take turns at talk, think of others, and perform acts. We achieve these goals by using and connecting a range of different units – speech acts, idea units, turns at talk, as well as sentences. Speakers anticipate what their recipients need (e.g. how much information do they need?) and want (e.g. how polite do they expect me to be?). Speakers design what they say in relation to “educated” guesses about their hearers. These guesses are based on both past experience and the current interaction.
为了举例说明这些观点,我们将讨论来自同一演讲情境(社会语言学研究访谈)的两个口头话语片段,其中一位演讲者向另一位演讲者寻求有关特定主题的信息。这两个片段将一起说明各种过程和结构,包括问答序列、对不清楚的含义的冗长修复、短时间的谈话交流以及在讲故事时维持长时间的谈话。还说明了人们如何共同将新信息融入话语并协作发展谈话主题。
To exemplify these points we will discuss two segments of spoken discourse from the same speech situation – a sociolinguistic research interview – in which one speaker seeks information from another about a specific topic of interest. Together the two segments will illustrate a variety of processes and structures, including question/answer sequences, lengthy repairs of unclear meanings, exchanges of short turns at talk, and maintenance of a long turn at talk in which a story is told. Also illustrated is how people jointly ease new information into a discourse and collaboratively develop topics of talk.
我们首先从一段采访摘录开始,当时安妮(一名语言学学生)正开车带着塞伊尔(费城当地居民)在城里转悠,以了解更多周边地区的情况。采访开始时,塞伊尔和安妮进入了费城的一个意大利市场。塞伊尔和安妮都喜欢在市场购物,塞伊尔描述了她和表妹过去如何乘坐公共交通工具(有轨电车)去市场。
We begin with an excerpt from an interview that took place while Anne (a linguistics student) was driving Ceil (a local resident of Philadelphia) around the city in order to learn more about its neighborhoods. The exchange begins as Ceil and Anne enter a part of Philadelphia with an Italian market. Both Ceil and Anne like shopping at the market and Ceil describes how she and her cousin used to use public transportation (the trolley car) to go to the market.
仔细阅读摘录几遍,不仅要理解内容,还要感受互动的节奏(例如谁在什么时候说话)并在自己的头脑中“听到”。然后,您将为话语分析提供的“指导阅读”做好准备。
Read the excerpt closely several times, not just to understand the content, but also to get a feeling for the rhythm of the interaction (e.g. who speaks when) and to “hear it” in your own head. You will then be more ready for the “guided readings” that a discourse analysis can provide.
话语分析通常结合两种“解读”。一种“解读”关注发生的事情的顺序:谁在什么时候说了什么?它在话语中的特定点上有什么意义;它与之前发生的事情和之后发生的事情有何关系?另一种“解读”关注话语中语言特定特征或品质的分布;什么形式或说话方式发生在哪里?某些语言特征是否比其他特征更常同时出现?如果是这样,那么如何解释这种同时发生?
Two kinds of “readings” typically are combined in discourse analyses. One “reading” focuses on the sequence of what happens: who says what and when? What is its significance at that particular point in the discourse; how is it related to what came before and what will come after? The other “reading” focuses on the distribution of specific features or qualities of language in the discourse; what forms, or ways of speaking, occur where? Do some features of language occur together more than others? If so, what could account for this co-occurrence?
假设你对学习课堂话语感兴趣。你听到一个学生在回答老师的问题时,用了well作为开头,你对well在课堂上的用法感到好奇。你该如何开始分析?顺序分析侧重于具体问题/答案的细节演讲事件——其背景、参与者、问题和答案的信息内容等等。你将了解到well对课堂上那一刻出现的意义的具体贡献。分布分析首先会找到 well在课堂上的所有用法,然后确定它们的不同使用环境,包括(但不限于)问答演讲事件。你将了解到well与话语其他特征的关系,例如,它与不同参与者的用法、问题和答案的内容等等。这两种分析结合起来,丰富了我们对特定互动中个别时刻以及更一般的话语特征和过程的理解。
Imagine that you’re interested in learning about classroom discourse. You hear a student answer a teacher’s question by prefacing it with well and you’re curious about the use of well in the classroom. How do you start your analysis? A sequential analysis focuses on the details of the specific question/answer speech event – its setting, the participants, the informational content of the question and its answer, and so on. What you would learn about well would be its specific contribution to the meanings that are emerging at that moment in the classroom. A distributional analysis would start by finding all the uses of well in the classroom and then identifying their different contexts of use, including (but not limited to) question/answer speech events. What you would learn about well would be its relationship with other features of the discourse, e.g. its use with different participants, contents of questions and answers, and so on. The two analyses together enrich our understanding of individual moments in a particular interaction and of more general discourse features and processes.
正如我们上面提到的,Anne 和 Ceil 正在费城开车兜风。在 (a) 到 (c) 中,Ceil 识别(并称赞)了他们刚刚进入的城市区域。Anne 标记了该区域 (e),Ceil 同意该标记 (f) 并再次对其进行了评估。当 Anne 同意“哦,我也喜欢(i)”时,Ceil 开始解释她为什么喜欢这个市场,比如“哦:,我很想在那里建一个市场,因为- (j)。Ceil 和 Anne 继续称赞这个市场(在 (k) 到 (o) 中),然后,正如话语标记 我的意思是,Ceil 开始通过一个例子来解释她对市场的喜爱。(话语标记是一些小词和短语,它们表明某人即将要说的(通常在口头话语的开头)如何与已经说过的以及他们接下来要说的。)
As we noted above, Anne and Ceil are driving around Philadelphia. In (a) to (c), Ceil identifies (and praises) the section of the city that they have just entered. Anne labels the section (e), Ceil agrees with the label (f) and assesses it again. As Anne is agreeing Oh, I do, too (i), Ceil begins to explain why she likes the market in Oh:, I’d love to have one up there because- (j). Ceil and Anne continue to praise the market (in (k) through (o)), and then, as indicated by the discourse markers I mean and like, Ceil begins to explain her fondness for the market through an example. (Discourse markers are small words and phrases that indicate how what someone is about to say (often at the beginning of a spoken utterance) fits into what has already been said and into what they are about to say next.)
修复序列是话语中的常规操作,可让对话者处理当一方犯错时出现的有损面子的情况。修复序列有两个组成部分,启动和修复,每个部分都可以由犯错的一方(自己)或另一方(他人)处理。启动识别问题来源,修复修复问题。每个修复序列传达不同的信息。例如,犯错的一方可以“自我启动/自我修复”,如下例中的 Nan 一样,发出挽回面子的信息“我知道我犯了一个错误,但我发现了它,我可以修复它。”
Repair sequences are routines in discourse which allow interlocutors to negotiate the face-threatening situation which arises when one speaker makes a mistake. Repair sequences have two components, initiation and repair, each of which can be handled by the speaker who made the mistake (self) or another participant (other). Initiation identifies the trouble source and repair fixes it. Each repair sequence communicates a different message. For example, the speaker who made the mistake can “self-initiate/self-repair,” like Nan in the example below, sending the face-saving message “I know I made a mistake but I caught it and I can fix it.”
NAN:她把今年所有离开的人都给了我,我是说这个季度。JAN:是的
NAN: She was givin me a:ll the people that were go:ne this yea:r I mean this quarter y’knowJAN: Yeah
如果说话者无法识别故障源,另一方可以发起维修,但允许说话者进行实际维修(并证明他的能力):
If the speaker doesn’t recognize the trouble source, the other can initiate a repair but allow the speaker to make the actual repair (and prove his competence):
KEN:艾尔今天在这儿吗?丹:是的。(2.0)罗杰:是吗?嗯嗯丹:是的。
KEN: Is Al here today?DAN: Yeah. (2.0)ROGER: He IS? hh eh hehDAN: Well he was.
请注意,Roger 等待了 2 秒钟才开始修复,然后将 Dan 指向故障源(他是吗?)。
Notice that Roger waits 2 seconds before initiating the repair and then points Dan toward the trouble source (He IS?).
Al 发起的其他修复(如下)发出了什么信息?
What is the message sent by Al’s other-initiated other-repair (below)?
肯:他喜欢那边的那个女服务员。AL:你是说服务员,对吧?那是男人。
KEN: He likes that waitress over there.AL: You mean waiter, don’t you? That’s a man.
然而,请注意当 Ceil 开始提到那些曾经陪她去市场的人时发生了什么。Ceil 通过在(s)中打断自己的话语并带来- 标记该话语中的某些内容作为麻烦来源来主动发起修复。冠词“the”通常位于名词之前,该名词的所指(所谈论的事物)是确定的(即,听者相对熟悉或可识别)。Ceil 正要指代某个所指,好像 Anne 知道她在说谁一样,但显然意识到如果没有更多的信息,Anne 不会知道她在说谁。她接下来的几次讲话提供了必要的信息。在 (t) 中,Ceil 开始澄清他们过去常带谁来(比如我们只有-),然后意识到她必须进一步后退以解释我们指的是谁(比如 Ann 和我,我们 - 我的表妹,Ann?)。在 (v) 中,她开始回到她的故事,但再次绕道进一步识别最初的所指:我们 - 就像她有 Jesse 而我有我的 Kenny 一样。在 (x) 中,当 Ceil 完成自我修复时(话语开始于 (q))—— 我们过去常常把他们两个带到有轨电车上——有轨电车(q)的重复和从修复自我启动带来的(s)帮助我们(和安妮)推断出他们两个(x)——在上句中指的是杰西和肯尼——也提供了(q) 中中断的名词短语the - 中缺失的指称。
Notice, however, what happens as Ceil begins to refer to those who used to accompany her to the market. Ceil self-initiates a repair by interrupting her own utterance in (s) And bring the – marking something about that utterance as a trouble source. The article the usually precedes a noun whose referent (the thing being spoken about) is definite (that is, relatively familiar or identifiable to the listener). Ceil is about to refer to some referent as if Anne knows who she’s talking about, but apparently realizes that Anne won’t know who she’s talking about without more information. Her next several utterances provide the necessary information. In (t) Ceil begins to clarify who they used to bring (like we only had-) and then realizes that she must back up even further to explain who we refers to (like Ann and I, we- my cousin, Ann?). In (v), she begins to return to her story but detours again to further identify the initial referents: We- like she had Jesse and I had my Kenny. In (x), when Ceil completes her self-repair (and the utterance started in (q)) – and we used to bring them two down on the trolley car – the repetition of the trolley cars (q) and bring (s) from the repair self-initiation helps us (and Anne) infer that them two (x) – which refers to Jesse and Kenny in the previous sentence – also supplies the missing referent in the interrupted noun phrase the- in (q).
修复中提供的丰富细节以及修复的自我启动和自我完成之间的紧密联系都表明了接受者的设计——说话者在呈现信息时将听众考虑在内。例如,Ceil 添加的有关 Ann(我的表妹,Ann?)的信息表明,她已经判断出 Anne 对大家庭成员的不熟悉。同样,Ceil 从修复的自我启动到自我完成重复了有轨电车,以满足 Anne 将指称物放回被打断的描述中的需求。
Both the wealth of detail provided in the repair, and the cohesive ties between its self-initiation and self-completion, show recipient design – the process whereby a speaker takes the listener into account when presenting information. The information that Ceil added about Ann (my cousin, Ann?), for example, showed that she had gauged Anne’s lack of familiarity with members of her extended family. Likewise, Ceil’s repetition of trolley car from the repair self-initiation to its self-completion attended to Anne’s need to place the referent back into the description that had been interrupted.
从(3)中的记录中,我们还能注意到哪些关于口头话语的内容?每个人对话语的贡献方式又如何呢?如果我们看一下每个人的谈话量,看起来 Ceil 是主要发言人。尽管 Ceil 和 Anne 都轮流讲话,但他们在这些轮流中所说的内容却大不相同。Anne 问 Ceil 一个问题(那是-那是意大利市场,嗯?(e)),这个问题借鉴了 Ceil 对这座城市的了解。Anne 也同意 Ceil 提出的观点:是的(h)和哦,我也是(i)。当 Ceil 添加信息以帮助 Anne 识别指称物时,Anne 使用反向信道向 Ceil 发出信号,让她可以继续说话。(反向信道是简短的话语,例如“嗯嗯”,说话者用它来表示他们正在注意,但不想说话 然而。)
What else can we notice about spoken discourse from the transcript in (3)? What about the ways in which each person contributes to the discourse? If we look at the sheer amount of talk from each person, it looks like Ceil was the main speaker. And although Ceil and Anne both took turns at talk, what they said in those turns was quite different. Anne asked Ceil a question (That’s- that’s the Italian market, huh? (e)) that drew upon Ceil’s knowledge of the city. Anne also agreed with points that Ceil had made: Yeh (h) and Oh, I do, too (i). And while Ceil was adding information to help Anne recognize the referent, Anne used back channels to signal Ceil that it is okay for her to continue talking. (Back channels are brief utterances like mmhmm that speakers use to signal they are paying attention, but don’t want to talk just yet.)
虽然仔细分析单个记录可以帮助我们了解话语,但收集不同的记录并进行比较也是必不可少的。人们在交谈时使用的工具通常在某种程度上是相同的(例如,几乎所有的话语中都会重复出现轮流发言),但在其他层面上却有所不同(例如,轮流发言的方式可能不同)。捕捉相同之处并识别不同之处是话语分析的重要组成部分。我们在日常生活中都会进行许多不同类型的话语,并且不会在每次讲话时即兴发挥或构建新规则。相反,我们的大部分交流能力都包括关于如何说话的一般原则以及根据具体情况修改这些原则的方法。如果我们想建立关于话语的概括,那么一个好方法是收集在某些方面相同(例如,所有来自社会语言学访谈)但在其他方面不同的话语示例(例如,来自不同的人)。同样,比较不同类型的言语情景和言语事件的话语也是很有用的,这样我们就能了解这些情景和事件的社会特征与我们使用语言的方式有何关联。
Although close analysis of a single transcript can help us learn about discourse, gathering together different transcripts and comparing them is also essential. The tools that people use when they are talking to one another are often the same at some level (e.g. turn-taking recurs in almost all discourse) but different at other levels (e.g. the ways that turns are exchanged may differ). Capturing what is the same, and identifying what is different, is an important part of discourse analysis. We all engage in many different kinds of discourse throughout our daily lives and don’t improvise or construct new rules each and every time we speak. Rather, much of our communicative competence consists of general principles about how to speak and ways of modifying those principles to specific circumstances. If we want to build up generalizations about discourse, then, a good way to do it is to gather together examples of discourse that are the same in some ways (e.g. all from sociolinguistic interviews) but different in other ways (e.g. from different people). Likewise, it is useful to compare the discourse of different kinds of speech situations and speech events in order to see how the social features of those situations and events are related to the way we use language.
下面(4)中的记录也来自社会语言学访谈,但发生的言语事件和言语行为截然不同。在(4)中,杰克、他的妻子弗雷达和他们的侄子罗布一直在和我谈论费城生活的不同方面,我一直在研究费城的言语。杰克一直在吹嘘他与乔伊·戈特利布的童年友谊,后者后来成为著名的喜剧演员乔伊·毕晓普。本节下文开始于弗雷达提到杰克和乔伊分享了他们的成人礼(犹太男孩十三岁时的成年仪式)。
The transcript in (4) below is also from a sociolinguistic interview, but the speech events and speech acts that occur are quite different. In (4), Jack, his wife Freda, and their nephew Rob have been talking with me about different facets of life in Philadelphia, the city whose speech I have been studying. Jack has been boasting about his childhood friendship with Joey Gottlieb, who became a well-known comedian known as Joey Bishop. The section below begins when Freda mentions that Jack and Joey shared their Bar Mitzvah (a rite of passage for Jewish boys when they turn thirteen).
杰克、弗雷达、罗布和我(黛比)之间的交流在谈话过程中不断变化。例如,从行 (a) 到 (ll),有几个人是活跃的发言者,有时同时发言。例如,在行 (p) 到 (s) 中,杰克提到了他的高中老师(在行 (k) 和 (l) 中),杰克和弗雷达重叠。然后出现了两个不同的对话:弗雷达问我关于我母亲的事(她曾经是一名教师),而杰克继续谈论他自己的高中老师(在行 (t) 到 (aa) 中)。杰克最终在行 (gg) 到 (aa) 中讲述一个故事时占据了主导地位(呃呃)。
The interchange among Jack, Freda, Rob, and me (Debby) changes shape during the course of talk. From lines (a) to (ll), for example, several people are active speakers, sometimes speaking at the same time. Jack and Freda overlap, for example, in lines (p) to (s) after Jack has mentioned his high school teacher, in (k) and (l). Then two different conversations develop: Freda asks me about my mother (who used to be a teacher) while Jack continues to talk about his own high school teacher (in lines (t) to (aa)). Jack eventually dominates the floor when he tells a story in lines (gg) to (eee).
(4)和(3)中的对话都是由面试官的问题引发的。从语义上讲,问题不完整 命题;它们缺少命题的“谁”、“什么”、“何时”、“何地”、“为什么”或“如何”,或者它们的极性(正或负)未知(某事是否发生?描述是否准确?)。问题的命题不完整性是其话语功能的一部分。它们执行具有交互后果的言语行为(请求信息或行动);问题开辟了一个“位置”,其中接下来听到的任何内容都将被评估为答案(“完成”问题)。话语中两个话语之间的这种关系称为邻接对- 一个由两部分组成的序列,其中第一部分建立了将提供特定第二部分的强烈期望。这种期望如此强烈,以至于第一部分限制了对第二部分的解释。例如,即使是问题之后的沉默也会被解释为一种答案 - 即使只是不愿或无法提供答案。
The conversations in (4) and (3) are both initiated by interviewers’ questions. Semantically, questions are incomplete propositions; they are missing the “who,” “what,” when,” “where,” “why,” or “how” of a proposition, or their polarity (positive or negative) is unknown (did something happen or not? is a description accurate?). The propositional incompleteness of questions is part of their discourse function. They perform speech acts (requests for information or action) that have interactional consequences; questions open up a “slot” in which whatever is heard next will be assessed as an answer (“completing” the question). This kind of relationship between two utterances in discourse is called an adjacency pair – a two-part sequence in which the first part sets up a strong expectation that a particular second part will be provided. This expectation is so strong that the first part constrains the interpretation of the second part. For example, even a silence after a question will be interpreted as a kind of answer – if only a reluctance or inability to provide an answer.
邻接对的两个部分帮助人们组织对话,因为它们设定了对接下来将发生什么的期望。这些期望对说话者和听话者都有帮助。例如,如果我感谢你帮我一个忙,这会给你提供线索,让你知道我在想什么,以及你下一步应该做什么,让你更容易知道该说什么。我也简化了自己的工作,因为我知道该听什么。事实上,邻接对中缺少“第二部分”可能会令人不安;我们通常会听邻接对的结束(例如,为什么他不说不客气?),即使那些比第一部分晚得多的结束也是如此部分。
The two parts of an adjacency pair help people organize their conversations because they set up expectations for what will happen next. These expectations help both speakers and hearers. If I thank you for doing me a favor, for example, that gives you clues about what I’m thinking and what you should do next, making it easier for you to know what to say. I also simplify my own job since I know what to listen for. Indeed, a missing “second part” of an adjacency pair can be disconcerting; we typically listen for closure of the adjacency pair (e.g. why didn’t he say You’re welcome?), even those that come much later than the first part.
我们在示例 (3)中看到,Ceil 进行了冗长的自我修复,以便 Anne 知道她在谈论谁。Jack 也在他的论述中引入了一个新的指称,但他使用了一个问题来做到这一点,在 (k) 中:
We saw in example (3) how Ceil made a lengthy self-repair so that Anne would know who she was talking about. Jack also introduces a new referent into his discourse, but he uses a question to do so, in (k):
杰克提供的关于老师的信息足以让弗雷达识别出“老师”指称(是的,我知道(m))。因为杰克的描述不包括老师的名字,罗布把它解释为修复序列的自我启动,并提供了一个other-repair – 修复另一个说话者话语中的问题项。Rob 提供了 Jack 所指称对象的名称(Lamberton?(n))。Rob 和 Freda 同时讲话,并与 Jack 对老师的持续描述重叠(lo)。Jack 在 (l) 中对老师的描述可以在 Freda 和 Rob 开始讲话的地方结束,他们预料到了这一点话轮过渡处——通常以句法闭合、语调边界和/或命题完成为标志的地方,另一个人可以在此处开始谈话。
The information that Jack provides about the teacher is enough for Freda to recognize the “teacher” referent (Yes I do (m)). Because Jack’s description does not include the teacher’s name, Rob interprets it as a self-initiation of a repair sequence and offers an other-repair – a repair of a problematic item in another speaker’s utterance. Rob provides the name of Jack’s referent (Lamberton? (n)). Rob and Freda speak at the same time and overlap with Jack’s continuing description of the teacher (l-o). Jack’s description of the teacher in (l) could have ended where Freda and Rob started talking, and they anticipated this turn-transition place – a place often marked by syntactic closure, intonational boundary, and/or propositional completion where another may begin a turn at talk.
Rob 和 Freda 在 (m) 和 (n) 中的不同回答表明听众可能会对另一个人所说的不同方面做出反应。人们在互动中承担说话、倾听和行动的责任的方式是参与框架的一部分。有时,当人们扮演不同的角色和/或分成不同的互动时,参与框架会发生变化,也许是为了探讨不同的话题或建立不同的关系。例如,当 Freda 在 (t)、(v) 和 (x) 中提到我的母亲(她曾是一名教师)时,然后问“你母亲教书多久了?” (bb),她邀请我在对话中扮演不同的、更积极的角色。
Rob and Freda’s differing responses in (m) and (n) show that listeners may react to different aspects of what another person has said. The ways that people interacting with one another take responsibility for speaking, listening, and acting are part of the participation framework. Sometimes participation frameworks change when people adopt different roles and/or split off into separate interactions, perhaps to pursue divergent topics or establish a different relationship. For example, when Freda brings up my mother (who had been a teacher) in (t), (v), and (x), and then asks How m- long has your mother been teaching? (bb), she invites me to take a different, more active role in the conversation.
弗雷达试图创建新的参与框架,这与杰克继续谈论他的音乐老师重叠,见 (u) 和 (w)。杰克在讲述一个故事(从 (aa) 行到 (ccc) 行)时开启了一个新的参与者框架,他几乎独自掌握了发言权。但他必须在 (y)、(aa) 和 (gg) 中通过重复短语“有一天”来表示转向这种轮流发言和讲故事状态。
Freda’s attempt to create a new participation framework overlaps with Jack’s continuing talk about his music teacher, in (u) and (w). Jack opens a new participant framework when he tells a story (from lines (aa) to (ccc)) in which he holds the floor pretty much on his own. But he had to signal the shift to this turn-taking and storytelling status in (y), (aa), and (gg) with the repetition of the phrase one day.
一旦杰克在(gg)中发言,他就会讲述一段故事,讲述一段经历,其中过去的事件按发生顺序讲述。杰克的叙述是关于一个音乐会上,他和乔伊本应演奏一首挽歌,一首正式的(通常是哀伤的)音乐作品。然而,乔伊却通过演奏卡通歌曲(“刮胡子和理发,两分钱!”)来增添乐趣,而不是预期的和弦。
Once Jack gains the floor in (gg), he tells a narrative, a recounting of an experience in which past events are told in the order in which they occurred. Jack’s narrative is about a recital in which he and Joey were supposed to play an elegy, a formal (often mournful) musical composition. Joey, however, jazzes it up by playing a cartoon jingle (“Shave and a haircut, two bits!”) instead of the expected chords.
叙述与其他体裁和言语事件在很多方面形成对比。叙述组织信息的方式与其他体裁不同,例如描述、解释和列表。例如,叙述按发生的时间顺序呈现事件,但列表则不必如此,正如我们在杰克与乔伊的习惯性活动列表中所看到的((c) 至 (g))。叙述具有不同的参与框架;讲故事的人往往独自掌握话语权。最后,完全形成的个人经历口头叙述(美式英语)的内容具有相对固定的结构,由以下部分组成(通常按此顺序):
Narratives contrast with other genres and speech events in a number of ways. Narratives organize information differently than other genres, such as descriptions, explanations, and lists. For example, narratives present events in temporal order of occurrence, but lists need not, as we can see in Jack’s list of habitual activities with Joey ((c) through (g)). Narratives have a different participation framework; storytellers tend to hold the floor alone. And finally, the content of a fully formed oral narrative of personal experience (in American English) has a relatively fixed structure, consisting of the following parts (usually in this order):
虽然在杰克的叙述中识别抽象、复杂的动作和尾声相对容易,但识别方向和评价可能更困难。许多方向描述了背景场景——谁在场、在哪里、什么时候。杰克在叙述之前已经介绍了他的朋友乔伊和老师,但杰克确实花了相当多的时间,在 (ll) 到 (oo) 行中,让听众熟悉朗诵中通常会发生的事情。这对于故事的要点至关重要;如果观众没有模式(一组结构化的对应该发生什么事情的期望),那么他们就无法识别与期望的偏差。然而,期望的突破是杰克故事幽默的根源,也是故事的关键。
Whereas it is relatively easy to identify the abstract, complicating action, and coda in Jack’s narrative, it may be more difficult to identify the orientation and evaluation. Many orientations describe the background scene – who is present, where, and when. Jack had already introduced his friend Joey and the teacher prior to the narrative, but Jack does spend a fair amount of time, in lines (ll) to (oo), familiarizing his listeners with what typically happens in a recital. This is crucial for the point of the story; if the audience doesn’t have a schema (a set of structured expectations of what is supposed to happen), then they can’t recognize a deviation from expectation. Yet the break in expectation is what underlies the humor in Jack’s story and is crucial for its point.
但故事的真正意义何在?这里我们需要转向评价。讲故事的人经常用一种方式来表示评价,即使用历史现在时——用现在时来表达过去的事件。历史现在时隐藏在叙述从句的语言中,如在“所以,一切都安排好了”(pp)中,他在一个和弦中唱道“DAA da da da da,da DAAA!”(tt)。杰克唱曲调也突出了故事的幽默感;通过与故事其他部分的对比,可以清楚地看到他突然唱出旋律。很明显,乔伊的音乐恶作剧的幽默是成功的;观众笑了(“好吧,整个:观众都笑了! ”(uu)),老师也笑了,“即使是这个老师,这个——她笑了” (CCC)。
But what actually is the point of the story? Here we need to turn to the evaluation. One way in which people telling stories often indicate evaluation is by using the historical present tense – the use of the present tense to convey past events. The historical present is buried within the language of the narrative clauses, as in So, everything is set fine (pp) through and in a chord, he goes DAA da da da da, da DAAA! (tt). Also highlighting the humor of the story is Jack’s singing of the tune; breaking into melody is clearly noticeable through its contrast with the rest of the story. And clearly the humor of Joey’s musical prank works; the audience laughs (Well the whole: audience broke up! (uu)), as does the teacher in Even this teacher, this one that-she laughed (ccc).
在本节中,我们说明了不同的语言配置如何协同工作以产生口语连贯性。我们强调了说话者试图实现多个目标的一些方法,有时是同时实现的:
In this section, we have illustrated how different configurations of language work together to produce coherence in spoken discourse. We have highlighted some of the ways that speakers try to achieve several goals, sometimes simultaneously:
对话者一起分配谈话轮次,并开发不同的框架来进行互动。话语由各种不同的单位组成(例如,从句、句子、轮次和言语行为),这些单位将不同的谈话线索联系在一起。正如我们将在下一节中看到的那样,并非所有这些过程都会出现在书面话语中。由于口头和书面话语之间存在复杂的差异,因此,即使出现,其运作方式也略有不同。
Together, interlocutors distribute turns at talk and develop different frameworks in which to interact. Discourse consists of a variety of different units (for example, clauses, sentences, turns, and speech acts) that tie together different strands of talk. As we will see in the next section, not all of these processes appear in written discourse. Those that do, work somewhat differently because of the complex differences between spoken and written discourse.
语言根据其使用情况而变化称为语域变化,而语言中在特定使用情况下特有的变体称为语域。每种情况都有自己的交际需求——信息、社交、指称、表达——人们使用其语言的特征来满足该情况的交际需求。通常用于满足特定交际情况需求的语言特征集——语音、词汇、句法和语用——是该情况的语域。
Language variation according to the situation in which it is used is called register variation, and varieties of a language that are typical of a particular situation of use are called registers. Each situation makes its own communicative demands – informational, social, referential, expressive – and people use the features of their language which meet the communicative demands of the situation. The set of language features – phonological, lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic – which is normally used to meet the demands of a particular communicative situation is the register of that situation.
社会语言学家戴尔·海姆斯 (Dell Hymes) 提出了首字母缩略词 SPEAKING 作为记忆法 (或记忆辅助法),用于记住大多数语音情况的组成部分。将 SPEAKING 助记符视为一个网格;每个元素都是一个变量,是可能描述情况的一系列可能值。在 SPEAKING 网格中填写每个变量的值对于描述给定的交流情况大有帮助。
Sociolinguist Dell Hymes proposed the acronym SPEAKING as a mnemonic (or memory aid) for remembering the components of most speech situations. Think of the SPEAKING mnemonic as a grid; each element is a variable, a range of possible values which may describe the situation. Filling in the value of each variable in the SPEAKING grid goes a long way toward describing a given communicative situation.
物理位置和社会意义
Physical location and social significance
各自的社会地位、互动中的本地角色
Respective social status, local roles in interaction
活动目的、参与者各自的目标
Purpose of the event, respective goals of the participants
功能上或惯例上适合情景的言语行为
Speech acts that are functionally or conventionally appropriate to the situation
语气或情绪(例如严肃、讽刺)
Tone or mood (e.g. serious, ironic)
沟通方式(例如口头、书面、电话)
Mode of communication (e.g. spoken, written, via telephone)
行为期望及其解释
Expectations of behavior and their interpretation
活动类型(例如对话、讲座、布道)
Type of event (e.g. conversation, lecture, sermon)
为了展示口语网格如何帮助描述演讲情况,以及情况如何要求特定语言的运用,想象一下烹饪课:
To show how the SPEAKING grid helps describe a speech situation – and how the situation demands particular uses of language – imagine a cooking class:
所有上面提到的语言和话语特征在烹饪课中经常同时出现,因此是烹饪课内容的一部分。
All of the linguistic and discourse features mentioned above co-occur frequently in cooking classes and therefore are part of the register of a cooking class.
继Douglas Biber 教授指出,语言学家已经确定了在多种口语(和写作)情境中同时出现的语言特征集。这些特征集的主要交流功能包括人际交往、信息呈现、叙述、描述和说服。我们根据对这些基本交流工具的不同侧重点来标记和构建每一段口语情况。
Following the work of Douglas Biber, linguists have identified the sets of linguistic features that tend to co-occur across many speech (and writing) situations. The main communicative functions that those sets of features serve include interpersonal involvement, presentation of information, narration, description, and persuasion. With our varying emphases on these basic communicative tools, we mark and construct each speech situation.
学习说话似乎不需要付出太多努力;它与我们早期的儿童期的社会化。但学习写作通常是一个正式而明确的过程,包括图形约定(打印字母以及在脚本中将它们连接在一起)、技术(如何使用键盘和管理计算机文件)、标点符号(例如何时使用逗号、分号和冒号)和“正确”语法规则(例如“句子末尾不能有介词”)。为什么我们不能像说话那样写作?原因之一是书面文本具有长寿性,即“保质期”;它们可以比短暂的言语被阅读和重读,并被更仔细地研究。有时书面文本也会成为文化经典的一部分;它们是智慧、洞察力和机构知识的官方承载者,可以随着时间和世代传承下来。这意味着关于语言应该是什么的意识形态——具有社会机构力量的标准语言(见第 11 章)——往往会对我们的写作方式产生强烈影响。
Learning to speak seems to occur without much effort; it is woven seamlessly into our early childhood socialization. But learning to write is often a formal and explicit process that includes instruction in graphic conventions (printing letters as well as connecting them together in script), technology (how to use a keyboard and manage computer files), punctuation (e.g. when to use commas, semi-colons, and colons) and rules of “correct” grammar (e.g. “No prepositions at the ends of sentences”). Why can’t we just write the way we speak? One reason is that written texts have longevity, a “shelf life”; they can be read and reread and examined more closely than transitory speech. Sometimes written texts also become part of a cultural canon; they serve as official bearers of wisdom, insight, and institutional knowledge that can be passed down over time and generation. And this means that ideologies about what language should be – the standard variety with the power of social institutions behind it (see Chapter 11) – often have a strong impact on the way we write.
当然,并非所有书面话语都符合如此高的标准。除了文学作品、学术教科书章节、法律摘要和公司会议记录外,我们还发现漫画书、自助手册、购物清单和日记。显然,后一种书面话语类型与前一种书面话语类型并不遵循相同的正确性标准。然而,尽管书面话语类型之间存在广泛差异,但它们在几个关键方面都与口头话语不同。
Of course, not all written discourse is held up to such high standards. In addition to literature, chapters in academic textbooks, legal briefs, and minutes of corporate meetings, we find comic books, self-help manuals, grocery lists, and diaries. Clearly, the latter genres of written discourse are not subject to the same standards of correctness as the former. Yet, despite the wide-ranging differences among written genres, they all differ from spoken discourse in several crucial ways.
一个主要的区别是说话比写作快。这种差异对最终成果有影响。说话时,我们可以更快地从一个想法或思路转到另一个想法或思路,从而产生 Chafe ( 1982 ) 所说的碎片化,即将信息分割成小的、语法简单的语块,每次大致表达一个想法。写作时,我们有时间将一组想法塑造成一个复杂的整体,其中各种类型和级别的信息被整合到句子中。因此,整合就是将信息排列成长而语法复杂的语块,每次表达多个想法。
One major difference is that speaking is faster than writing. This difference has an impact on the final product. When speaking, we can move more rapidly from one idea or thought to another, resulting in what Chafe (1982) calls fragmentation, the segmentation of information into small, syntactically simple chunks of language that present roughly one idea at a time. When writing, we have time to mold a group of ideas into a complex whole in which various types and levels of information are integrated into sentences. Integration is thus the arrangement of information into long, syntactically complex chunks of language that present more than one idea at a time.
通过观察话语中新指称物的引入——尚未提及的人、地点或事物——我们可以看到碎片化和整合之间的区别。例如,回想一下(3)中 Ceil 介绍陪她和 Ann 坐电车的男孩:就像我们只有——就像 Ann 和我,我们——我的表弟 Ann?我们——就像她有 Jesse 而我有我的 Kenny 一样;我们常常带他们两个坐电车。然而,如果 Ceil 正在写一本关于意大利市场的回忆录,她可能会使用如下复杂句:在我们的其他孩子出生之前,我的表弟 Ann 和我常常带着我们的两个儿子 Jesse 和 Kenny 坐电车去意大利市场。请注意,指称表达本身(我们的两个男孩,杰西和肯尼)会被埋在关于时间、活动和其他指称物的复杂信息中,然后是他们要去哪里以及如何到达那里的描述——所有这些都在一句话中!那么,关于指称对象的关键信息将与其他信息整合成一个复杂的句法单元,而不是分散成不同的声调单位(语音产生的部分,受时间、语调和音高变化的限制)和转折讲话。
We can see the difference between fragmentation and integration by looking at the introduction of new referents into discourse – people, places, or things that have not yet been mentioned. Recall, for example, Ceil’s introduction of the boys accompanying her and Ann on the trolley car in (3): like we only had- like Ann and I, we-my cousin, Ann? We- like she had Jesse and I had my Kenny; and we used to bring them two down on the trolley car. However, if Ceil were writing a memory book about the Italian market, she might use a complex sentence such as the following: Before our other children were born, my cousin Ann and I used to take our two boys, Jesse and Kenny, on the trolley car to the Italian market. Notice that the referring expression itself (our two boys, Jesse and Kenny) would be buried within a complex of other information about time, activity, and other referents, and followed by a description of where they were going and how they got there – all in one sentence! The crucial information about the referent, then, would be integrated with other information in one complex syntactic unit, rather than fragmented into different tone units (segments of speech production that are bounded by changes in timing, intonation, and pitch) and turns at talk.
口语和书面语的另一个重要区别是接受者的角色。在口语体裁中,接受者以两种方式参与到不断发展的话语中:(a) 接受者通过后台渠道提供反馈或要求澄清;(b) 接受者有机会成为演讲者。这些差异归结为参与框架的差异。在口头话语中,参与者在“说话者”和“听众”角色之间交替时更有可能面临相似的机会(和挑战)。参与者如何应对这些转变会对话语的整体流程产生深远的影响。例如,回想一下,杰克在开始讲述他的故事之前,必须设法避开弗雷达和黛比之间交替出现的对话。即便如此,他也只有在通过提起最近的共同经历引起弗雷达的注意后才能继续讲述他的故事。
Another crucial difference between spoken and written discourse is the role of the recipient. In spoken genres, the recipient is a co-participant in the evolving discourse in two ways: (a) the recipient provides feedback through back channels or by asking for clarification; (b) the recipient gets a chance to become a speaker. These differences boil down to differences in participation framework. In spoken discourse, participants are more likely to face similar opportunities (and challenges) as they alternate between the roles of “speaker” and “listener.” How participants manage these shifts can have profound impacts on the overall flow of discourse. Recall, for example, how Jack had to maneuver around the alternate conversations that developed between Freda and Debby before he could begin his story. Even then, he could pursue his story only after he had secured Freda’s attention by bringing up a recently shared experience.
书面话语的创作者和接受者与口头话语的创作者和接受者在非常不同的参与框架中互动。作家必须预测其预期接受者的信息需求,以及如何在没有即时反馈的情况下保持读者的兴趣。作家试图清晰地表达,并让读者参与到他们的材料中。在这里,他们可以利用读者容易理解的结构(如短句和简单句)以及戏剧性手法(如隐喻和视觉意象)来使其激动人心和引人入胜。正如演讲者根据听众的需求和兴趣调整他们所说的内容一样,作家也试图预测特定类型的读者。
Producers and recipients of written discourse interact in very different participation frameworks than those engaged in spoken discourse. Writers have to anticipate the informational needs of their intended recipients, as well as what will maintain readers’ interest, without the benefit of immediate feedback. Writers try to be clear and to create involvement with their material and with their intended readers. Here they can draw upon structures that are easy for readers to process (like short and simple sentences), as well as dramatic devices (like metaphor and visual imagery) to make it exciting and engrossing. And just as speakers orient what they say to their listeners’ needs and interests, so too writers try to anticipate a particular type of reader.
根据作者如何构建“理想”读者,他们使用语言的不同方面来保持读者的兴趣,并使文本与读者的需求和目标相关。这意味着作者——就像演讲者一样——也会为他们的预期受众设计他们的话语。一个很好的方法是比较不同的书面体裁。就像在不同的演讲事件和演讲情境中发生的口头体裁的比较一样,学者们有时称之为比较 语域,即使用语言的方式,反映语言环境的不同方面(例如参与者、目标和环境)。
Depending on how writers construct their “ideal” readers, they use different aspects of language to maintain readers’ interest and to make the text relevant to their readers’ needs and goals. This means that writers – like speakers – also design their discourse for their projected recipients. A good way to see this is to compare different written genres with one another. Like the comparison of spoken genres that occur during different speech events and speech situations, scholars sometimes call this a comparison between registers, ways of using language that reflect different facets of its context (e.g. participants, goals, and setting).
(5a)和(5b)中的书面文本有一些共同的语域特征,但它们也存在很多差异。(5a)取自报纸专栏,年轻人在其中寻求有关个人关系的建议。(5b)取自护发素瓶子的背面。
The written texts in (5a) and (5b) share some general register features, but they also differ in various ways. (5a) is from a newspaper column in which young adults seek advice about their personal relationships. (5b) is from the back of a bottle of hair conditioner.
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让我们首先看看这些文本的内容及其结构:传达了什么以及如何传达?这两篇文章都涉及一个问题和一个解决方案。每个问题都是如何处理某些事情——关系中的承诺、不羁的头发——这些问题的解决方案可能需要读者表现出自信,无论是口头上(我应该问……)还是身体上(控制发型)。每个解决方案都需要从初始状态进行某种转变。询问承诺需要从一个人成长的方式中进行重新调整。同样,头发变得丰满有光泽也是护发素的结果。
Let’s look first at the content of these texts and how they are constructed: what is being conveyed and how? Both texts are about a problem and a solution. The problem in each is how to manage something – commitment in a relationship, unruly hair – whose solution may require the reader to be assertive, either verbally (Should I ask …) or physically (to control styles). Each solution requires a transformation of some sort from an initial state. Asking about commitment requires being reconditioned from the way one was raised. So too, gaining body and lustre in one’s hair is the result of a conditioner.
两篇文章都依赖于在每句话中整合多个想法来提出各自的问题和解决方案。例如,C 的建议 (5a)的最后一句整合了关于要求专一的两条信息:这是诚实的;这是一种赞美。HEADRESS描述(5b)的最后一句也整合了两种解决方案——缓释抗氧化剂和UVA 和 UVB 保护剂——以防范恶劣环境因素的问题。
Both texts rely upon the integration of more than one idea in each sentence to present their respective problems and solutions. For example, the last sentence of C’s advice (5a) integrates two pieces of information about asking to be exclusive: it is honest; it is a compliment. The last sentence in the HEADRESS description (5b) also integrates two solutions – time released Antioxidants and UVA and UVB Protectors – to guard against the problem of harsh environmental elements.
这些句子不仅提出了问题的解决方案;它们还对这些解决方案进行了积极的评价。亲爱的卡罗琳文本称解决方案(要求独家)是一种赞美,如果不说出来会很可惜;而替代方案(不要求独家)则被负面评价(可惜)。在HEADRESS文本中,产品的成分提供保护,使头发持续散发出健康的光泽,唤起光彩照人的积极形象,让人联想到太阳。因此,尽管两条文本都没有直接说“这是适合您的解决方案!”,但这条信息在文本中得到了明确的暗示。
These sentences don’t just present solutions to problems; they also positively evaluate those solutions. The Dear Carolyn text calls the solution (asking to be exclusive) such a compliment that it would be a shame to withhold it; the alternative (not asking to be exclusive) is negatively evaluated (a shame). In the HEADRESS text, the product’s ingredients provide protection so hair continuously shines with radiant health, evoking glowing, positive images, reminiscent of the sun. So although neither text comes right out and says “this is the right solution for you!,” this message is clearly implied through the texts.
这些问题/解决方案文本也构建并反映了他们的参与框架——作者和读者的角色和身份。每篇文章的主题可能是与有限的读者群(年轻女性)相关,仅仅是因为问题涉及男朋友(5a)和头发(5b) 。尽管有这种广泛的相似性,但这两篇文章建立了不同的关系和身份。虽然我们对(5a)中寻求建议的人的身份一无所知,但提供建议的人的身份出现了好几次,鼓励读者将作者作为一个真实的人来参与其中。相比之下,在HEADRESS文本中,关于文本来源的唯一信息是一家公司的名称及其联系方式。
These problem/solution texts also construct and reflect their participation frameworks – the roles and identities of the writer and the reader. The topic of each text is likely to be relevant to a limited set of readers – young women – simply because the problems concern a boyfriend (5a) and hair (5b). Despite this broad similarity, the two texts set up different relationships and identities. Although we don’t know anything about the identity of the person asking for advice in (5a), the identity of the person giving advice appears several times, encouraging reader involvement with the writer as a real person. In contrast, in the HEADRESS text the only information about the source of the text is the name of a company and how to contact it.
两篇文章的语言也创造了作者和读者之间不同类型的参与,这反过来有助于建构他们各自的社会身份。 《亲爱的卡罗琳》使用了像“男人”之类的随意用语,这是年轻人和朋友在电话里聊天时的典型用语。《HEADRESS》的描述充满了我们日常词汇中没有的指称表达 - 例如,用热电器代替“吹风机” - 或者我们可能甚至不知道的表达(泛醇?植物神经酰胺?)。这种陌生感使文本具有了科学的合理性。建议栏更像是朋友之间的聊天,而《HEADRESS》的文本则模仿了与专业专家的咨询。
The language of the two texts also creates different types of involvement between writer and reader, which in turn help to construct their respective social identities. Dear Carolyn uses casual terms like a guy and stuff like that, typical of a young adult chatting with a friend on the phone. The HEADRESS description is filled with referring expressions that are not part of our everyday vocabulary – e.g. thermal appliance instead of ‘hairdryer’ – or that we may not even know (Panthenol? Vegetable Ceramides?). This unfamiliarity lends the text an air of scientific legitimacy. Whereas the advice column resembles a chat between friends, the HEADRESS text mimics a consultation with an expert professional.
传达的内容(和方式)以及作者和读者的身份(和关系)的差异,在每篇文章提出问题解决方案的方式中都体现出来了。在建议栏中,C 的回应建立了友情(我也是这样长大的)。另一方面,在HEADRESS中,指示是一串命令式的句子:没有主语代词,只有动词(应用、摩擦、分发、梳理),传达出一种例行程序的感觉,而不是个人关心。
Differences in what is being conveyed (and how), and identities (and relationship) of writer and reader, come together in the way each text proposes a solution to the problem. In the advice column, C’s response establishes camaraderie (I was raised that way, too). In HEADRESS, on the other hand, the DIRECTIONS are a list of imperative sentences: there are no subject pronouns, just verbs (apply, rub, distribute, comb) that instruct and command, conveying a sense of routine procedure, not personal concern.
根据话语的创作方式(写作或演讲)来划分话语,忽视了许多不同的体裁和每种语言类型都有不同的语域。但总体上还是存在一些差异。口头话语更加零散,书面话语更加完整。虽然人们当然会根据说话的方式来评判他们,但许多书面文本的持久性使人们受到更深入、更严格的审查和更高的标准。然而,所有语言使用者都会根据听到(或读到)他们所说(或所写)内容的人来调整他们的话语。说话者有机会不断调整他们所说的内容——有时是在听众的帮助下——而作家则有更多的时间。然而,两者最终都会磨练他们的信息,对其进行一次又一次的塑造,使其结构化,从而与接收者建立微妙而复杂的关系。
Dividing discourse by how it is created – by writing or speaking – overlooks the many different genres and registers within each type. But there are still some overall differences. Spoken discourse is more fragmented and written discourse is more integrated. Although people are certainly judged by the way they speak, the longevity of many written texts subjects them to further and more intense scrutiny and to higher standards. All language users, however, orient their discourse to whoever will hear (or read) what they say (or write). Whereas speakers have the chance to continuously adjust what they say – sometimes with the help of their listeners – writers have the luxury of more time. Yet both end up honing their messages, shaping and reshaping them to structure information in ways that set up nuanced and complex relationships with their recipients.
所有话语分析方法都涉及语言的功能、文本的结构以及文本与上下文之间的关系。语言的主要功能是指称性:我们使用语言来传达有关实体(例如人、物体)及其属性、动作和关系的信息。但语言还具有社交和表达功能,使我们能够做一些事情(例如感谢、吹嘘、侮辱和道歉),向他人传达我们对他们和其他事物的感受。我们还使用语言说服他人相信我们的信念,并通过精心设计文本来展示这些信念的逻辑和吸引力,敦促他们采取行动。
All approaches to discourse analysis address the functions of language, the structures of texts, and the relationship between text and context. A main function of language is referential: we use language to convey information about entities (e.g. people, objects), as well as their attributes, actions, and relationships. But language also has social and expressive functions that allow us to do things – like thanking, boasting, insulting, and apologizing – that convey to others how we feel about them and other things. We also use language to persuade others of our convictions and urge them toward action by crafting texts that demonstrate the logic and appeal of those convictions.
图 5.1(根据 Jakobson 1960改编并修改)展示了语言的六种功能——人们通过使用语言完成的六项工作。Jakobson 的语言功能模型将言语情况表示为一组多维关系,有点像多面钻石。
Figure 5.1 (adapted and modified from Jakobson 1960) presents six functions of language – six jobs that people accomplish by using language. Jakobson’s model of language functions represents the speech situation as a multidimensional set of relationships, a bit like a multifaceted diamond.
当我们从不同角度看待言语情境时,我们会看到不同的方面、言语情境各组成部分之间的不同联系、所用语言的特点以及该语言所发挥的交际功能。每种语言功能都与言语情境的不同方面相关。图 5.1中的箭头表示言语情境与功能之间的关系,并表明言语情境的不同方面 - 以及不同功能 - 是如何相互关联的。实线箭头表示地址者和被地址者之间的连接路径 - 通过联系来回连接或通过讯息单向连接。虚线箭头表示语境贯穿于地址者和被地址者的说话方式以及他们联系的环境。从代码到讯息的虚线箭头强调了语言对讯息的贡献。
When we view the speech situation from different angles, we see different facets, different connections between the components of the speech situation, the features of language used, and the communicative function performed by that language. Each language function is related to a different facet of the speech situation. The arrows in Figure 5.1 indicate the relationship between speech situation and function, and suggest how different aspects of the speech situation – and different functions – are related to one another. The unbroken arrows indicate paths by which ADDRESSOR and ADDRESSEE are connected – back and forth through CONTACT or unidirectionally through a MESSAGE. The arrows in dashes indicate that CONTEXT pervades the way ADDRESSOR and ADDRESSEE speak, as well as the circumstances of their CONTACT. The dotted arrow from CODE to MESSAGE highlights the contribution of language to the MESSAGE.
句子通常同时具有多种功能。虽然句子可能具有主要功能,但它很可能具有多种功能。例如,假设有人说“现在几点了?”这个句子的主要功能是意动词:它是一个向受话人提出请求的问题。但如果它打开了联系,它也可能具有寒暄功能。它当然具有情感功能(它传达了说话者的需要)和指称功能(它指称外部世界语言)。
Sentences typically serve more than one function at a time. Although a sentence may have a primary function, it is likely to be multifunctional. Suppose, for example, someone says What time is it? The sentence’s primary function is conative: it is a question that requests something of the addressee. But it may also have a phatic function if it opens contact. And it certainly has an emotive function (it conveys a need of the addressor) and a referential function (it makes reference to the world outside language).
雅各布森的语言功能模型强调“句子之外”的语境,却忽视了文本——“句子之上”的语言单位。我们所说或所写的内容从来都不是凭空产生的:它总是被其他话语中的其他信息所包围。通过连续的语言块积累的信息使雅各布森模型中提出的多功能性观点变得复杂。由于功能随着每个连续的句子而堆积,我们如何设法找出我们应该关注哪些功能,哪些功能我们可以安全地忽略?具有多种功能的句子如何串联起来以创建连贯的文本?
Jakobson’s model of language functions stresses the context “beyond the sentence,” but it ignores the text – the unit of language “above the sentence.” What we say or write never occurs in a vacuum: it is always surrounded by other information in other utterances. The accumulation of information through successive chunks of language complicates the view of multifunctionality presented in Jakobson’s model. Since functions pile up with each successive sentence, how do we manage to sort out which functions we should pay attention to and which we may safely ignore? How are sentences with multiple functions strung together to create coherent texts?
要回答这个问题,我们必须将注意力从“句子”转移到话语,即语境化的句子。句子是按照语言的语法规则组合在一起的一串单词,而话语则是句子在文本和社会语境中的实现——包括围绕它的话语和说出它的情景。话语是多个语境层面的交集,当我们说话和倾听时,我们依靠这些相交的语境层面来传达和解释每个话语的含义。因此,话语表达的含义远比它所包含的句子多得多。
To answer this question, we must shift our attention from the “sentence” to the utterance, a contextualized sentence. Whereas a sentence is a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language, an utterance is the realization of a sentence in a textual and social context – including both the utterances which surround it and the situation in which it is uttered. An utterance is the intersection of many planes of context, and as we speak and listen, we rely on these intersecting planes of context to convey and interpret the meaning of each utterance. An utterance thus expresses far more meaning than the sentence it contains.
(6)中的例子有助于理清句子和话语之间的区别。
The examples in (6) can help disentangle the difference between sentence and utterance.
| (6) |
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虽然句子相同,但(6)中的三次话语分析很有趣却是三种不同的话语,因为它们是在不同的语境中产生的。虽然(6a)和(6b)出现在相同的社会背景中(如教科书中所呈现的例子),但它们的文本背景存在差异:(6a)是该句子的第一次出现,而(6b)是该句子的第二次出现(重复)。(6a)和(6b)也都与(6c)不同。虽然(6c)是教科书中的插图,但它也是两个对话者之间互动的一部分,因此它具有与(6a)和(6b)不同的社会背景。
Although the sentences are the same, the three occurrences of Discourse analysis is fun in (6) are three different utterances, because they are produced in different contexts. Although (6a) and (6b) appear in the same social context (as examples presented in a textbook), there is a difference in their textual contexts: (6a) is the first appearance of the sentence, and (6b) is the second appearance (a repetition) of the sentence. (6a) and (6b) both differ from (6c), as well. Although (6c) is an illustration in a textbook, it is also part of an interaction between two interlocutors, so it has a different social context than (6a) and (6b).
关注话语可以让我们了解话语中使用的语言如何与多个语境层面相关联,以及如何通过语言表达。就像钻石的切面一样,话语同时具有以下含义:
Focusing on utterances allows us to see how several planes of context are related to, and expressed through, the language used in an utterance. Like the facets of a diamond, an utterance simultaneously has meaning as:
每句话语都是参与框架、交换结构、行为结构、信息状态和思想结构的一部分,并在其中具有意义。每句话语都与其他话语以及这些话语层面的语境相联系;这些联系是每句话语意义的一部分。说话者通过构建和关注他们自己“下一个”话语来表明他们强调了前一句话语的哪些方面意义。话语。
Each utterance is simultaneously part of – and has meaning in – a participation framework, an exchange structure, an act structure, an information state, and an idea structure. Each utterance is connected to other utterances and to the context on each of these planes of discourse; part of each utterance’s meaning is these connections. Speakers indicate which aspects of meaning of a prior utterance they are emphasizing by the construction and focus of their own “next” utterances in a discourse.
参与框架是人们通过采用和调整角色、身份以及行为和互动方式来组织和维持互动的方式。参与框架包括说话者和听话者之间关系的所有方面,这些方面在他们互动时变得相关,无论是在口头话语的“实时”中,还是在书面文本的“错位时间”中。我们通过所说的话不断与他人保持一致。例如,我们经常依靠所说的内容(以及所说的方式)来评估我们与另一位说话者的关系状态:他是否试图说服我接受他的观点?她看起来疏远吗?我伤害了她的感情吗?为什么他现在似乎对我们今晚出去的计划持怀疑态度?因此,我们所说的内容和我们所说的方式对于我们人际关系的形成、管理和协商至关重要。
The participation framework is the way that people organize and maintain an interaction by adopting and adapting roles, identities, and ways of acting and interacting. Included are all aspects of the relationship between a speaker and hearer that become relevant whenever they are interacting with one another, either in the “real time” of spoken discourse or the “displaced time” of written texts. We continuously align with others through what we say. For example, we frequently depend upon what is being said (and how it is being said) to assess the status of our relationship with another speaker: is he trying to convince me to take his point of view? Does she seem distant? Have I hurt her feelings? Why does he now seem skeptical about our plan to go out tonight? What we say and how we say it are thus critical to the formation, management, and negotiation of our interpersonal relationships.
交流结构涉及人们轮流谈话的方式:我们如何知道何时开始谈话?我们是否会有交集?如果有,那么在何时、何地、如何以及为什么?这种交集对正在讲话的人意味着什么?如何管理多方谈话中的交流?由于参与口头话语通常需要在说话者和听话者的角色之间交替,因此交流结构与参与框架相关。因此,我们可能会发现轮流谈话会随着参与框架的不同而不同。例如,在求职面试期间,我们可能会等待潜在雇主完成他/她的问题后再开始回答。然而,当与老朋友闲聊或开玩笑时,我们可能会同时说话,将我们交集的轮流视为热情和团结的可喜迹象。
The exchange structure concerns the way people take turns in talk: how do we know when to start talking? Do we ever overlap, and if so, where, when, how and why? What does such overlap mean to the person already talking? How is exchange in multiparty talk managed? Because participation in spoken discourse typically requires alternating between the roles of speaker and hearer, the exchange structure is connected to the participation framework. Thus we might find that turn-taking would differ along with participation framework. During a job interview, for example, we might wait for a potential employer to finish his/her question before we start the answer. When gossiping or joking around with an old friend, however, we might end up talking at the same time, viewing our overlapping turns as welcome signs of enthusiasm and solidarity.
动作结构是通过言语执行的有序动作序列。例如,问题、问候和赞美等相邻对限制了对以下话语(及其说话者的角色)的解释。指控为被告提供了认罪、否认或反指控的行为选择。接受的赌注最终将使一个参与者成为赢家,而另一个参与者成为输家(也许是债务人)。言语行为对参与者及其关系还有其他影响。几乎所有言语行为——命令、问题、请求、暗示、赞美、警告、承诺、否认——都允许人们发挥不同程度的责任和控制力,从而在说话者和听话者之间产生距离或团结、权力或平等的感觉。
Act structures are ordered sequences of actions performed through speech. For example, the first parts of adjacency pairs like questions, greetings, and compliments constrain the interpretation of the following utterance (and the role of its speaker). An accusation presents the accused with the act choices of confession, denial, or counter-accusation. An accepted bet will eventually recast one participant as the winner and the other as the loser (and maybe debtor). Speech acts have still other consequences for participants and their relationship. Almost all speech acts – commands, questions, requests, hints, compliments, warnings, promises, denials – allow people to exert different degrees of responsibility and control that create feelings of distance or solidarity, power or equality between speaker and hearer.
信息状态是人们在相互交流时的知识分布。说话者在构建话语时会考虑听众的信息需求:说话者可以假设哪些常识?他/她如何呈现全新的信息?
The information state is the distribution of knowledge among people interacting with one another. Speakers take into account their listeners’ informational needs as they construct their utterances: what common knowledge can the speaker assume? How does he/she present brand new information?
我们通常可以通过查看修复的具体细节来看到信息状态的变化,例如示例 (3)中 Ceil 的修复,它填补了 Anne 所不知道的信息。但我们也可以通过查看未经过修复的句子中的单词选择及其排列来发现说话者如何适应听众的知识。例如,谈话中的说话者将旧信息(他们认为他们的收信人知道或可以弄清楚)与新信息(他们认为他们的收信人不知道也无法弄清楚)混合在一起。(7a –c)中的话语都在谈话中引入了新的指称:
Often we can see changes in the information state by looking at the nuts and bolts of repairs, like Ceil’s repairs in example (3) that filled in information that Anne didn’t have. But we can also find speakers accommodating to their hearers’ knowledge by looking at the choice of words, and their arrangement, in sentences that don’t undergo repair. For example, speakers in conversation mix together old information (which they believe their addressees know or can figure out) with new information (which they believe their addressees don’t know and can’t figure out). The utterances in (7a–c) all introduce new referents into a conversation:
| (7) |
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句法主语—— (7)中句子开头的斜体形式——很少为对话引入新的指称。简单且信息量不大的开头子句(如there is、they have和y'know)传达的信息很少,因此重点放在句子结尾的新信息上。句子。
Syntactic subjects – the italicized forms at the beginning of the sentences in (7) – rarely introduce new referents to a conversation. The minimal information conveyed by simple and uninformative initial clauses (like there is, they have, and y’know) puts the focus on the new information at the end of the sentence.
思想结构涉及句子内信息的组织以及 文本中的命题:句子内部和句子之间信息片段如何相互关联。不同的文体通常具有不同的思想结构。回想一下建议栏和护发素标签的问题解决方案组织。回想一下示例 (4)中杰克的叙述。杰克开始讲述他的故事后,每个小节都按照事件发生的顺序呈现事件。叙述具有基于时间进展的线性组织的思想结构。下面的电子邮件条目显示了另外两种文体——列表(8)和解释(9)。
Idea structure concerns the organization of information within a sentence and the organization of propositions in a text: how bits of information are linked together within, and across, sentences. Different genres typically have different idea structures. Recall the problem-solution organization of the advice column and hair conditioner label. Recall also Jack’s narrative in example (4). Once Jack got started on his story, each clause presented an event in the order in which it was presumed to have occurred. A narrative has an idea structure with a linear organization based on temporal progression. The email entries below show two other genres – a list (8) and an explanation (9).
| (8) |
好的,这是购物清单。别忘了水果——我们需要苹果、梨(如果它们足够成熟的话)、香蕉。我们还需要一些牛奶和鸡蛋。如果你能找到一些好吃的甜点,比如一些巧克力曲奇或小糕点,那就太好了! Okay, here’s the grocery list. Don’t forget the fruit – we need apples, pears, if they’re ripe enough, bananas. And we also need some milk and eggs. And if you can find something good for dessert, like some chocolate chip cookies or small pastries, that would be great! |
| (9) |
我觉得我们今晚不应该出去。首先,天气预报说会下雪。而且我真的很累。我刚下班,宁愿看电视上的电影或做点别的。所以你觉得这样可以吗? I don’t really think we should go out tonight. For one thing, it’s supposed to snow. And I’m really tired. I just finished work and would rather just watch a movie on TV or something. So is that okay with you? |
重复是六种语言手段之一,它通过提供不同句子之间的衔接纽带 (Halliday and Hasan 1976 ) 来帮助将信息连接成一个文本。其他衔接手段包括指称(例如通过代词)、替代(使用释义)、省略(删除句子或文本中容易恢复的材料)、连词(连接句子的词如and或but)和词汇关系(例如,语义上相关的词,如水果和梨)。以下食谱的简短摘录说明了不同类型的衔接纽带。
Repetition is one of six language devices that help to join information together as a text by providing cohesive ties (Halliday and Hasan 1976) among different sentences. Other cohesive devices are reference (e.g. through pronouns), substitution (using paraphrases), ellipsis (deleting material that is easily recoverable from the sentence or text), conjunction (words like and or but that connect sentences), and lexical relations (e.g. words whose meanings are semantically related, e.g. fruit and pear). The following short excerpt from a recipe illustrates the different kinds of cohesive ties.
斜体单词和短语共享相同的下标数字,它们通过衔接方式连接(每个衔接方式下方都有标签)。例如,Apple通过词汇关系的衔接方式与水果相连, First和Then通过连词相连。对读者的第一次提及(you)与以下动词短语中省略的主语代词相连,并 在最后一句中重复了you ,而混合词是这两个动词短语乘积的替代词,用大括号 {} 表示。最后,标题和最后一句中 pudding的重复为整个文本划上了句号。
Italicized words and phrases sharing the same subscript number are connected by a cohesive tie (labeled underneath each tie). So, for example, Apple is tied to the fruit by the cohesive device of lexical relation, and First and Then are tied by conjunction. The first reference to the reader (you) is tied to the elided subject pronouns of the following verb phrases and repeated you in the last sentence, and the mixture is a substitution for the product of those two verb phrases, indicated by curly brackets {}. Finally, the repetition of pudding, in the title and the last sentence, bookends the whole text.
摘录中的 36 个单词(包括省略的主语代词)中,超过一半的单词之间有衔接关系,这有助于读者理解每个句子的含义,甚至整个句子的含义文本。
Out of 36 words in the excerpt (counting the elided subject pronouns), more than half are linked in cohesive ties which help the reader understand the meaning of not just each sentence, but the entire text.
(8)中列表的理念结构反映了食品店要购买的物品之间的语义关系。水果是一个上级集,包括苹果、梨和香蕉。牛奶和鸡蛋都是商店奶制品区需要冷藏的物品。甜点包括饼干和糕点。然而, (9)中解释的理念结构是基于结论(不出门)与证明该结论的事件(或状态)(天气、身体状态、时间、替代 活动)。
The idea structure of the list in (8) reflects semantic relationships among the items to be bought at the food store. Fruit is a superordinate set that includes apples, pears, and bananas. Milk and eggs are items that both require refrigeration in the dairy section of stores. And dessert includes cookies and pastries. The idea structure of the explanation in (9), however, is based on the relationship between a conclusion (not to go out) and the events (or states) that justify that conclusion (weather, physical state, time, alternative activity).
虽然我们一直在分别讨论每个话语层面,但我们需要记住,每一句话都是不同话语层面的一部分,并在这些层面上有意义。我们可以通过查看(10)中的话语来更清楚地了解这些关系,这是公共图书馆咨询台上图书管理员和顾客之间互动的摘录。
Although we have been discussing each plane of discourse separately, we need to remember that every utterance is simultaneously part of – and has meaning on – different planes of discourse. We can get a clearer picture of these relationships by taking a look at the discourse in (10), an excerpt from an interaction between a librarian and a patron at the reference desk of a public library.
| (10) |
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图书管理员的部分工作是帮助顾客在图书馆中查找资料。在开启这种言语情景(例如通过眼神交流或对不起)后,顾客通常使用言语行为“请求”来获得帮助。尽管顾客没有说“你能给我……”或“你有……”之类的话,但她的话语仍然执行了请求的言语行为。我们知道这一点(图书管理员和图书馆顾客也知道),因为参与框架(图书管理员和顾客的身份和角色)帮助我们认识到,听起来像是在断言报告的存在(这里曾经是一份月度报告(a))的话语也是在执行请求。
Part of the librarian’s job is to help patrons find material in the library. After opening this speech situation (e.g. with eye contact or excuse me), patrons typically use the speech act “request” to get help. Although the patron doesn’t say anything like “Can you give me…” or “Do you have…,” her utterance still performs the speech act of a request. We know this (as do librarians and library patrons) because the participation framework (the identities and roles of librarians and patrons) helps us recognize that an utterance that sounds as if it is asserting the existence of a report (There used to be a monthly report (a)) is also performing a request.
请注意,关于月度报告存在的话语在抄本中以长而复杂的句子的形式出现,分布在四行中((a)、(b)、(d) 和 (e))。这些行反映了不同的声调单位,即语音产生的部分,这些部分受时间、语调和音调变化的限制。由于该句子分布在多个声调单位上,它最终绕过了话轮转换位置(听众可以选择话轮的位置),并允许顾客完成对语音事件和语音情况至关重要的语音行为(请求)。
Notice that the utterance about the existence of the monthly report appears as a long and complex sentence spread over four lines in the transcript ((a), (b), (d), and (e)). These lines reflect different tone units, segments of speech production that are bounded by changes in timing, intonation, and pitch. Because the sentence is spread out over multiple tone units, it ends up bypassing turn-transition places (locations at which the listener is given the option of taking a turn) and allows the patron to complete the speech act (a request) that is pivotal to the speech event and speech situation.
将顾客的长句划分为四个声调单元也反映了图书管理员话语的信息状态和接收者设计。顾客在提供了她正在寻找的物品的两条信息后停顿了一下:它的频率(月度报告)和来源(来自 S-证券交易委员会)。这个停顿是图书管理员展示她对所请求项目的认可并遵从请求的机会。如果没有发生这种情况,顾客会继续描述报告,在(b)、(d)和(e)中,在每条新的潜在识别信息之后停顿一下,让图书管理员有另一次回应的机会。在(a)、(b)、(d)和(e)之后的轮次转换位置的停顿使图书管理员更容易完成邻接对并尽早回应顾客的请求。因此,行为结构、参与结构、交换结构、信息状态和想法结构相互加强,使请求(及其响应)的产生和解释清晰明了,高效的。
The division of the patron’s long sentence into four tone units also reflects the information state and the recipient design of the utterance for the librarian. The patron pauses after providing two pieces of information about the item she’s looking for: its frequency (a monthly report) and source (that comes from S-Securities Exchange Commission). This pause is an opportunity for the librarian to display her recognition of the requested item and to comply with the request. When that doesn’t happen, the patron continues her description of the report, in (b), (d), and (e), pausing after each new piece of potential identifying information to give the librarian another chance to respond. The pauses at the turn-transition places after (a), (b), (d), and (e) make it easier for the librarian to complete the adjacency pair and respond to the patron’s request at the earliest possible point. The act structure, the participation structure, the exchange structure, the information state, and the idea structure thus reinforce each other to make the production and the interpretation of the request (and its response) clear and efficient.
话语由一些较小的单元组成,例如命题、言语行为和对话轮次。但话语不仅仅是这些较小单元的总和。它通过“自下而上”和“自上而下”的过程成为一个连贯的单元。我们实时地自下而上地构建连贯性,通过建立在我们自己和彼此的先前话语及其各种含义的基础上。但与此同时,我们对所参与的更大活动(我们认为自己正在构建的演讲事件、演讲情况和类型)的感觉为组织这些较小的话语单元提供了一个自上而下的整体框架。例如,发言轮次是在参与者发言时协商的,但参与者也意识到演讲事件(例如讨论)在演讲情况(例如教室)中对如何分享“发言权”的更大期望。因此,同样的轮次模式可能会具有非常不同的含义,具体取决于它是在教室、法庭还是在第一次约会时进行。
Discourse is made up of patterned arrangements of smaller units, such as propositions, speech acts, and conversational turns. But discourse becomes more than the sum of its smaller parts. It becomes a coherent unit through both “bottom-up” and “top-down” processes. We construct coherence bottom-up in real time by building upon our own, and each others’, prior utterances and their various facets of meaning. At the same time, however, our sense of the larger activity in which we are participating – the speech event, speech situation, and genre that we perceive ourselves to be constructing – provides an overall top-down frame for organizing those smaller units of the discourse. For example, turns at talk are negotiated as participants speak, but participants also are aware of larger expectations about how to share the “floor” that are imposed by the speech event (e.g. a discussion) in a speech situation (e.g. a classroom). Thus the very same turn-taking pattern may take on very different meanings depending on whether it is taking place in a classroom, in a courtroom, or during a first date.
自下而上和自上而下的话语组织方式是同步进行的。整体框架帮助我们弄清楚如何解释所说和所做的事。它还帮助我们弄清楚如何将较小的单元相互关联起来。然而,我们对较小单元所做的选择——我现在应该轮到我了吗?我应该直接下达命令还是做出更微妙的暗示?——也会改变对某种情况下“正在发生的事情”的一般定义。话语的所有不同方面——它们所创建的结构和它们所反映的框架——的组合和协调赋予了话语连贯性,赋予了我们对正在发生的事情的整体感觉。
The bottom-up and top-down organizations of discourse work in synchrony. The overall frame helps us figure out how to interpret what is being said and done. It also helps us figure out where to place the smaller units in relation to one another. Yet choices that we make about the smaller units – should I take a turn now? should I issue a direct order or make a more subtle hint? – can also alter the general definition of what is “going on” in a situation. The combination and coordination of all the different facets of discourse – the structures that they create and the frames that they reflect – are what gives discourse its coherence, our overall sense of what is going on.
话语的多面性还源于我们在交谈时试图实现多个目标,而且往往是同时实现这些目标。我们用言语表达想法、引入新信息、纠正错误、轮流发言、为他人着想、采取行动、展示身份和关系。我们不断预测接收者需要什么(例如他们需要多少信息?)和想要什么(例如他们希望我有多礼貌?)。我们在说话时通过使用一系列不同的单位来实现这些多重目标,包括句子、声调单位、话语和言语行为,这些单位之间的功能联系有助于将不同的话语层面联系在一起。
The multifaceted nature of discourse also arises because we try to achieve several goals when we speak to each other, often all at the same time. We verbalize thoughts, introduce new information, repair errors in what we say, take turns at talk, think of others, perform acts, display identities and relationships. We are continuously anticipating what our recipients need (e.g. how much information do they need?) and want (e.g. how polite do they expect me to be?). We achieve these multiple goals when we are speaking by using a range of different units, including sentences, tone units, utterances, and speech acts, whose functional links to one another help tie together different planes of discourse.
话语分析——探究即时谈话的细微细节——可以非常详细。这些细节符合这样的假设:知识和意义是通过社会行动和反复实践发展和展示的,而这两者都依赖于语言。然而,对于一些学者来说,话语的范围超出了语言及其直接使用语境,包括 Gee ( 1999 : 17) 所说的“话语”(大写 D):“在‘正确’的地点和‘正确’的时间,与‘正确’的对象进行语言、思考、评价、行动和互动的方式之间的社会认可关联。”话语的这一概念远远超出了句子,甚至超出了言语行为、言语事件和言语情况的背景。它明确表明,我们的交际能力——我们在日常生活中如何使用语言的知识——是我们文化不可或缺的一部分。
Discourse analyses – peering into the small details of moment-by-moment talk – can be very detailed. And such details are in keeping with the assumption that knowledge and meaning are developed, and displayed, through social actions and recurrent practices, both of which depend upon language. Yet for some scholars the scope of discourse stretches beyond language and its immediate context of use to include what Gee (1999: 17) has called “Discourse” (with a capital D): “socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting and interacting, in the ‘right’ places and at the ‘right’ times with the ‘right’ objects.” This conception of Discourse reaches way above the sentence and even further beyond the contexts of speech act, speech event, and speech situations. It makes explicit that our communicative competence – our knowledge of how to use language in everyday life – is an integral part of our culture.
你会从下面两个对话摘录中得出什么推论?社会关系是什么?背景是什么?“所说内容”的哪些特征(例如,哪些特定的单词和短语?)允许你做出这些推论?
What inferences would you draw from the two conversational excerpts below? What is the social relationship? The setting? And what features of “what is said” (e.g. what specific words and phrases?) allow you to make these inferences?
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我们用语言行动和互动的方式不同,这通常是由于“语境”不同而导致的。收集 10 到 15 个电话开场白示例和 10 到 15 个面对面问候示例。在谁在何时说话、用词(例如hello、hi)和问句方面,你能找出它们之间的哪些差异。每个语境中的差异又如何呢?你(或你的对话者)说话的方式是否与你们彼此的了解程度或你上次与他们交谈的时间有关?
Differences in the ways we use language to act and interact often arise through differences in their “context.” Collect ten to fifteen examples of phone openings, and ten to fifteen examples of face-to-face greetings. What differences between them can you identify in who talks when, and the use of words (e.g. hello, hi) and questions. What about differences within each context? Does the way you (or your interlocutors) talk seem to be related to how well you know each other, or when you’ve spoken to them last?
尝试改变你在日常对话中使用的话语标记。例如,用well回答别人问你的每个问题。完全停止使用like或y'know。在每个句子或话语后面添加and。记录你自己做出这些改变的能力。哪些改变最难?这些改变告诉你这些话语标记的什么?
Try to change the discourse markers you use in your everyday conversations. For example, answer each question that someone asks you with well. Completely stop using like or y’know. Add and to every sentence or utterance. Keep a log of your own ability to make these changes. What changes were the hardest to make? What do the changes tell you about these discourse markers?
识别本章摘录中的问/答邻接对。分析这些邻接对以及您在课堂和对话中听到的问题,以回答以下问题:
Identify question/answer adjacency pairs in the transcribed excerpts in this chapter. Analyze those adjacency pairs, as well as questions that you hear in classes and conversations, to answer the following:
重读本章 示例(4)中杰克的故事,并回答以下问题:
Reread Jack’s story in example (4) in this chapter and answer the following questions:
用以下一种书面体裁写出杰克在(4)中的口头叙述:私人日记或日记中的条目;写给朋友的私人信件;博客上的一篇文章;支持论文中“小男孩很淘气”的论点。你做了哪些改变?哪些很容易决定?哪些让你感到困惑?
Write Jack’s spoken narrative from (4) in one of the following written genres: an entry in a private journal or diary; a personal letter to a friend; a posting on your blog; support for a thesis in an essay that young boys are mischievous. What changes did you make? Which were easy to decide upon? Which did you struggle with?
如果你使用即时消息与朋友或家人沟通,你如何管理你的后台渠道?你如何轮流?邻接对是否完成?从口头和书面话语之间的差异来考虑你的答案。
If you use instant messaging to communicate with friends or family, how do you manage your back channels? How do you take turns? Are adjacency pairs completed? Consider your answer in terms of the difference between spoken and written discourse.
请求是所有言语行为中研究最多的一种。哲学家约翰·塞尔认为,请求的产生和解释应遵循以下规则:
Requests are one of the most studied of all speech acts. The philosopher John Searle suggested that the following rules underlie the production and interpretation of requests:
命题内容 H 的未来幕 A 预备 (a) H 能够做到 A。 S 相信 H 能够做到 A。(b)对于 S 和 H 来说,H 是否会在正常情况下自愿做 A 这一点并不明显。诚意 S 希望 H 做 A。 基本的 算作让 H 做 A 的一次尝试。
Propositional content Future act A of H Preparatory (a) H is able to do A. S believes H is able to do A.(b) It is not obvious to both S and H that H will do A in the normal course of events of his own accord.Sincerity S wants H to do A. Essential Counts as an attempt to get H to do A.
提出请求的方式有很多种。有些请求似乎很直接,可能被归类为命令(例如“现在过来!”),而其他请求则非常间接,可能被归类为暗示(例如“我真的很孤独,我想知道你现在是否有事要做”。记下并比较你听到人们提出的请求,包括一些书面请求。你会惊讶地发现请求的种类之多!
There are many ways to make a request. Whereas some seem direct and might be subcategorized as orders (e.g. Come over now!), others are very indirect and might be subcategorized as hints (e.g. I’m really lonely and I’m wondering if you’re doing anything now). Jot down and compare the requests you hear people making, including some written requests. You’ll be surprised at how much variety you find!
根据每列提供的信息填写下面 SPEAKING 网格的空白单元格。然后解释您认为每个语音事件所具有的语音、词汇、句法和语用特征。所有三个语音事件的主题都是:所得税。
Fill in the empty cells of the SPEAKING grid below, following from the information given in each column. Then explain the phonological, lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic features which you think would characterize each speech event. The topic of all three speech events is: income taxes.
现在选择一个你熟悉的演讲事件,并使用 SPEAKING 网格进行分析。然后识别该演讲事件中使用的语言的特征。
Now choose a speech event which you are familiar with and analyze it using the SPEAKING grid. Then identify features that are characteristic of the language used in that speech event.
识别下面摘录中的“菜谱语域”的特征。然后描述使用菜谱的情况,并解释语域特征如何满足该情况的交流需求。
Identify the features of the “recipe register” in the excerpt below. Then describe the situation in which a recipe is used and explain how the register features meet the communicative demands of that situation.
柠檬宽面4 盎司 黄油(1 条)1½ 杯浓奶油2 个柠檬的果皮和果汁盐、现磨胡椒和肉豆蔻1磅意大利宽面磨碎的帕尔马干酪在厚平底锅中融化黄油。加入奶油并搅拌均匀。当酱汁加热后,加入柠檬汁、柠檬皮、盐、胡椒和肉豆蔻调味。拌入滚烫的意大利宽面和帕尔马干酪,即可食用。可供 6 人食用。
Fettucine al limone4 oz. butter (1 stick)1½ cups heavy creamzest and juice of 2 lemonssalt, freshly ground pepper, and nutmeg1lb. fettucinegrated Parmigiano-ReggianoMelt butter in a heavy saucepan. Add cream and stir to incorporate. When sauce is heated, add lemon juice, zest, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste. Toss with piping hot fettucine and Parmigiano-Reggiano and serve immediately. Serves 6.
选取本章示例(3)或(4)中的任意一段文字记录,使用雅各布森的话语功能模型,确定每句话的主要和次要功能。解释您认为每句话发挥这些功能的原因和方式。然后选取本章示例 (6)中的两段文本之一,执行相同的功能分析。最后,比较您对口头和书面文本的功能分析。强调了哪些功能?两段文本中的功能是否以相同的方式执行?
Take any stretch of the transcripts in examples (3) or (4) in the chapter and identify the primary and secondary functions served by each utterance, using Jakobson’s model of discourse functions. Explain why and how you think each sentence serves those functions. Then take one of the two texts in example (6) in the chapter and perform the same functional analysis. Finally, compare your functional analyses of the spoken and written texts. Which functions are emphasized? Are functions performed in the same way in the two texts?
儿童如何习得语言一直吸引着学者和非学者。幼儿的父母常常惊讶于他们的婴儿从咕咕叫和牙牙学语到强迫说出一个或两个词的速度如此之快。反过来,语言学家和心理学家也对了解所有儿童在三四岁时成为语言(或在世界上大多数地方成为语言)熟练使用者的阶段和机制很感兴趣。事实上,来自不同背景、处于不同学习条件下的儿童在学习母语时往往会经历类似的阶段。研究人员有兴趣探索这些过程,以更好地了解儿童如何完成这一非凡成就,同时也因为这些过程的性质对语言学领域的更大辩论具有重要意义。了解儿童习得语言的机制可以为语言的性质以及人类学习的性质提供重要启示。
How children acquire language has long intrigued scholars and nonscholars alike. Parents of young children are often amazed at how quickly their babies move from cooing and babbling to forceful one- and two-word demands. Linguists and psychologists, in turn, have been interested in understanding the stages and mechanisms by which all children become competent users of language (or, in most of the world, languages) by age three or four. Indeed, children from all backgrounds, and under diverse learning conditions, tend to pass through similar phases in learning their mother tongues. Researchers are interested in exploring these processes to gain a better understanding of how children accomplish this remarkable feat, but also because the nature of these processes holds important implications for larger debates in the field of linguistics. Understanding the mechanisms of how children acquire their language(s) can shed important light on the nature of language, as well as on the nature of human learning.
本章首先探讨研究人员如何收集儿童语言习得的数据。我们将回顾三种儿童语言习得研究方法:父母日记、 观察性研究和实验性研究。在简要讨论这些研究方法的优缺点之后,我们将转向一些实际数据。具体来说,我们将研究语音学、语义学、形态学和句法中语言发展的主要里程碑。我们还将研究这些过程在多大程度上会因文化背景和所习得的语言而有所不同。最后,在回顾一些主要研究结果之后,我们将考虑研究人员如何解释这些数据,概述儿童语言习得这一备受争议的领域的主要理论立场。
This chapter will first explore how researchers gather data on child language acquisition. We will review three approaches to child language acquisition research: parental diaries, observational studies, and experimental studies. After briefly discussing the advantages and disadvantages of these research approaches, we’ll turn to some of the actual data. Specifically, we will look at the major milestones of language development in phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax. We’ll also examine the extent to which these processes differ depending on the cultural context and the language being acquired. Lastly, after reviewing some of the major research findings, we will consider how researchers explain these data, outlining the major theoretical positions in the hotly debated field of child language acquisition.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
我们如何才能最好地研究儿童如何学习使用语言?由于我们的研究对象年龄太小,传统的数据收集方法往往不够充分。例如,我们无法要求一个一岁的孩子定义她说“爸爸”是什么意思,也无法判断一个句子的语法是否正确。儿童的语言理解能力通常超过他们的语言生成能力,因此仅仅依靠儿童的言语输出只能提供语言习得过程的部分信息。此外,最近的研究表明,语言学习甚至在出生前就开始了:例如,婴儿在出生几天后就表现出对母亲母语声音的偏好,这表明某种语言学习在子宫内就已经发生了,远早于大多数研究中受试者作为研究参与者的时间。
How can we best study how children learn to use language? Because our research subjects are so young, traditional means of data collection are often inadequate. We cannot, for instance, ask a one-year-old to define what she means when she says “ba-ba” or to judge the grammaticality of a sentence. Children’s language comprehension skills generally outpace their production abilities, so relying on children’s verbal output alone provides only a partial picture of the acquisition process. Furthermore, recent research suggests that language learning begins even before birth: for instance, infants show a preference for the sounds of their mother’s native language just days after being born, thus indicating that some kind of language learning has taken place in utero, long before subjects can serve as research participants in most studies.
在在收集和分析儿童语言时,研究人员通常力求数据的自然性和代表性。自然数据类似于儿童在日常生活中与熟悉的对话伙伴(如孩子的父母)在熟悉的环境(如家)进行日常活动(如玩耍)时使用的语言。代表性是指两个目标:首先,从特定儿童那里收集的语言数据应该代表该儿童每天使用的语言。因此,如果双语儿童平时主要和母亲讲西班牙语,那么母亲和孩子之间的英语对话样本将不能代表他们日常的互动模式。其次,所研究的儿童应该代表被调查的一般人群——例如,西班牙语-英语双语的四岁儿童。下面简要介绍并从自然性和代表性的角度对三种收集儿童语言数据的方法进行了评论。
In collecting and analyzing child language, researchers often strive for naturalness and representativeness in their data. Natural data are similar to the language children use in everyday life with familiar conversational partners (like the child’s parents) in familiar contexts (like the home) doing routine activities (like playing). Representativeness refers to two goals: first, the language data collected from a particular child should be representative of the language used by that child every day. Thus, if a bilingual child normally speaks mostly Spanish with his mother, a sample of English conversation between the mother and child would not be representative of their everyday interactional patterns. Second, the children studied should be representative of the general population under investigation – for example, Spanish–English bilingual four-year-olds. Below, three approaches to collecting child language data are briefly described and critiqued in terms of naturalness and representativeness.
一些关于儿童语言习得的早期研究发现于父母对其子女语言发展的详细描述中,这些描述通常被称为父母日记。虽然早期的尝试可以追溯到 18 世纪,但大多数父母日记,例如查尔斯·达尔文(Charles Darwin),十九世纪末至二十世纪上半叶人。 其中最著名的是沃纳·利奥波德(Werner Leopold)的四卷本记录,记录了他女儿希尔德加德同时学习德语和英语的过程。利奥波德是德国血统的德英双语人士;他的妻子是德国血统的美国人,但英语是她的主导语言。利奥波德从希尔德加德出生第八周开始就做了细致的记录,大部分数据集中在她出生后的头两年。他还在日记中广泛地阐述了理论,并描述了他对她语言发展的工作假设。(见方框 6.1中的示例。)
Some of the earliest studies of child language acquisition are found in parents’ detailed descriptions of their children’s language development, generally referred to as parental diaries. While early attempts date as far back as the eighteenth century, most parental diaries, such as those of Charles Darwin, come from the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. The most famous of these is Werner Leopold’s four-volume account of his daughter Hildegard’s simultaneous acquisition of German and English. Leopold was a German–English bilingual of German ancestry; his wife was an American with German roots, but English was her dominant language. Leopold kept meticulous notes beginning at Hildegard’s eighth week of life, with most of the data focusing on her first two years. He also theorized extensively in his diaries and described his working hypotheses on her language development. (See Box 6.1 for examples.)
以下摘自利奥波德的日记,展示了父母日记的轶事风格,以及父母如何记录孩子的自信程度和用第二语言说出的话语类型。
The following excerpts from Leopold’s diary demonstrate a parental diary’s anecdotal style and how the parent may also be able to record the child’s confidence level and type of utterances said in the second language.
1934 年 2 月 18 日。
现在,她的德语进步更加显著。她经常自发地用德语提出她的请求,尽管经常会恳求她“你帮我说一下”。有好几次,她找到了自己的表达方式,而没有模仿固定的模式……关联语句“Ich liebe dich”和“Ich dich auch”已经成为午餐桌上的一种家庭游戏。希尔德加德经常以“ Ich liebe dich auch”的形式说出第二个语句。动词的加入显示了英语“我也喜欢你”的影响,这句话没有动词就说不出来。出于同样的原因,这个版本对她来说比“ Ich hab dich lieb ”更成功,后者对单语儿童来说是更自然的表达方式。
1934 年 3 月 3 日。
英语:当你脱掉我的套鞋时,我的鞋子会脱落。这可能是德国的影响。那只 kit 在哪里?当我听不懂时,她解释说:kitty。这是错误的反向构词,以doggie-dog等为模型。……她的英语缺陷很小,而且例外。她说得很多,而且非常流利;几乎所有事情都是正确的。剩下的大多数错误都与强动词有关,就像在流行语中一样。像 writed这样的弱过去时形式经常出现。
(Leopold 1949b:52)。
February 18, 1934.
The progress in German is now more considerable. She utters her requests often spontaneously in German, although often with the plea You help me to say it. Several times she has found her own formulation, without imitation of a fixed model …. The correlative statements Ich liebe dich and Ich dich auch have become a sort of family game at the lunch table. Hildegard gives the second statement often in the form Ich liebe dich auch. The addition of the verb shows the influence of English I like you too, which cannot be said without the verb. For the same reason this version is more successful with her than ‘Ich hab dich lieb’, which would be the more natural expression for monolingual children.
March 3, 1934.
English: When you take my overshoes off, my shoes come off with. This might be German influence. Where is that kit? When I did not understand, she explained: kitty. It was an incorrect back-formation on the model of doggie-dog, etc. … The imperfections of her English are slight and exceptional. She speaks much and with perfect fluency; nearly everything is correct. The majority of the mistakes which remain concern strong verbs, as in popular speech. Weak past-tense forms like writed intrude frequently.
(Leopold 1949b: 52).
利奥波德的日记提供了丰富的细节和重要的见解,让我们了解语言学习过程,尤其是双语语言习得过程;然而,它们也存在许多父母日记研究的缺点。这种研究的一个固有问题是,日记中只有 一个观察员,他只记录一个孩子,这就提出了一个问题:希尔德加德是否代表了所有孩子。此外,唯一详细描述的语言形式是希尔德加德对利奥波德说的话,或者她在利奥波德身边说的话,这提供了一个可能有限且不具代表性的样本。在以下方面可能存在错误和遗漏:转录,再加上没有数据的录音带。也许更重要的是,父母(或任何观察者)自然倾向于选择性地关注不寻常的(更有趣的)样本,而不是日常的日常话语。因此,虽然利奥波德的日记仍然是该领域的经典,但它只提供了一个关于语言习得过程的特定视角,这个视角在数据的自然性方面是优越的(因为希尔德加德在她父亲的陪伴下自由地说话),但在代表性方面却有限。
Leopold’s diaries provide rich details and important insights into the process of language learning in general as well as bilingual language acquisition in particular; however, they suffer from many of the shortcomings of all parental diary studies. An inherent problem in this type of research is the fact that a diary consists of one observer who is taking notes on just one child, raising the question of whether Hildegard is representative of all children. Furthermore, the only linguistic forms described in great detail are the utterances that Hildegard directed at Leopold or which she used around Leopold, providing a potentially limited and unrepresentative sample. There are probably errors and omissions in transcription, compounded by the fact that there were no audiotapes of the data. Perhaps more importantly, there is a natural tendency for the parent (or any observer) to selectively focus on out-of-the-ordinary (and more interesting) samples rather than on routine and everyday utterances. Thus, while Leopold’s diary remains a classic in the field, it provides just one particular vantage point on the language acquisition process, a vantage point which is privileged in terms of the data’s naturalness (as Hildegard spoke freely in the company of her own father), but limited in terms of its representativeness.
从 20 世纪 60 年代初开始,研究人员开始录制并转录儿童的日常讲话,以了解他们如何学会理解和产生基本的英语句子结构。罗杰·布朗 (Roger Brown) 的观察性研究是最早和最著名的研究之一,他指导了哈佛大学的一项研究项目,该项目详细研究了三个孩子(来自三个家庭,与布朗没有亲属关系)的语言。布朗的经典著作《第一语言:早期阶段》 (1973 年)记录了亚当、莎拉和夏娃的语言发展。这本书首次提出了一些关于语法和形态系统随时间发展过程的解释。
Starting in the early 1960s, researchers began to audio record and transcribe the everyday speech of children in order to understand how they learned to comprehend and produce basic English sentence structures. Some of the earliest and best known of these observational studies are those of Roger Brown, who directed a research project at Harvard University which studied the language of three children (from three families, none related to Brown) in great detail. Brown’s classic book, A First Language: The Early Stages (1973), documents the development of Adam, Sarah, and Eve’s language. The book presents some of the first explanations of the development of grammatical and morphological systems over time.
以下摘录展示了布朗如何系统地观察这三个孩子的语言。他发现,有些错误经常发生,比如过去时形成时,而其他类型的错误则从未发生过,比如进行时的应用:
The following excerpt demonstrates how Brown looked at child language systematically across the three children. Some errors he finds occur often, as in past-tense formation, while other types never occur, as in the application of the progressive aspect:
孩子们犯了诸如comed和drinked、doos ( do + -s表示第三人称主语)、 stand ups和mans (复数)、 sheeps (复数)和mines (所有格)之类的错误……仅凭我们的数据中的进行时并没有被过度概括……为什么在进行时词形变化中都会出现错误,而在所有其他词形变化中却不会出现错误呢?
… 支配进行时的动词子分类是有原则的,而支配常规过去时、第三复数和所有格词形变化的适用性的子分类都是无原则的。…… want、like、need、know、see和hear等动词在美式英语中通常不采用进行时词形变化,在语义上可以与许多可以采用进行时词形变化的动词区分开来;前者都是非自愿状态。
(布朗1973:324-325)
The children created such errors as comed and drinked, and doos (do + -s for third-person subject) and stand ups and mans (plural) and sheeps (plural) and mines (possessive) … the progressive in our data alone is not overgeneralized … Why should no errors occur with the progressive inflection when they do occur with all other inflections?
… The subclassification of verbs which governs the progressive is a principled one whereas the subclassifications governing the applicability of the regular past, third plural, and possessive inflections are all unprincipled. … The verbs want, like, need, know, see and hear, which may not ordinarily take the progressive inflection in American English can be semantically distinguished from the many verbs that may take the progressive inflection; the former are all involunatary states.
(Brown 1973: 324–325)
通过观察孩子们的错误,布朗能够发现孩子们轻松掌握英语语言模式的能力。
By looking at the gaps in errors by children Brown was able to uncover children’s cabability for easily grasping the patterns of the English language.
此后,人们开展了许多其他观察性研究。在这些研究中,研究人员通常会对少数儿童(每次一个)在一段较长时间内定期在自然环境中互动进行录音(最近也进行录像)。然后,这些录音被转录和分析。这种方法允许研究人员检查不同儿童的问题或过去时态的表达方式如何随着时间的推移而发展,从而确定一般模式和个体差异。
Many other observational studies have since been conducted. In these studies, researchers typically audiotape (and more recently also videotape) a small number of children (one at a time) interacting in natural contexts regularly over an extended period. These recordings are then transcribed and analyzed. This approach allows researchers to examine, for instance, how questions or past-tense formulations develop over time among different children, identifying both general patterns and individual differences.
其他儿童语言观察研究,更具有人类学性质,侧重于语言社会化实践。这些研究试图揭示儿童如何语言能力如何发展成为适合文化的语言行为,重点在于这些互动模式和父母对语言的观念如何因文化而异。例如,在一些家庭中,孩子从出生起就被视为对话伙伴,哭声、咕噜声和早期的牙牙学语被视为有意义的交流尝试(见图6.1)。然而,这种情况远非普遍;在世界上的许多地方,婴儿早期的声音没有被赋予任何特定的含义或交流性意图。
Other observational studies of child language, more anthropological in nature, have focused on language socialization practices. These studies attempt to uncover how children are socialized into culturally appropriate language behavior and how linguistic competence develops, with an emphasis on how these patterns of interaction and parents’ ideologies about language vary crossculturally. For instance, in some families, children are viewed as conversational partners from birth, with cries, grunts, and early babbling sounds treated as meaningful communication attempts (see Figure 6.1). This is far from universal, however; in much of the world, infants’ early sounds are not assigned any particular meaning or communicative intent.
观察性研究往往是纵向的,也就是说,它们会跟踪同一批参与者几个月甚至几年。横断面观察性研究虽然不太常见,但也曾进行过。这些研究记录了至少两个不同群体的参与者的语言行为;例如,可以在横断面研究中比较一组两岁的韩裔美国儿童和一组类似的两岁的墨西哥裔美国儿童。
Observational studies have tended to be longitudinal – that is, they have followed the same participants over several months or perhaps as long as several years. Cross-sectional observational studies, although less common, have also been conducted. These studies record the language behavior of participants from at least two different groups; for instance, a group of two-year-old Korean-American children and a similar group of two-year-old Mexican-American children might be compared in a cross-sectional study.
由于收集、转录和分析数小时的语言数据非常耗时,这些观察性研究通常只包括少数儿童参与者。因此,虽然这类观察性研究因提供相对自然的数据以及代表儿童正常言语的数据而获得高分,但并不总是清楚少数参与者在多大程度上代表了更广泛的研究人群。研究人员试图克服这一缺点的一种方法是分享他们的记录。这样做的主要渠道是儿童语言数据交换系统 (CHILDES;请参阅http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/)。CHILDES不仅允许研究人员研究大量儿童的习得模式和过程,还可以研究不同语言群体儿童的习得模式有何不同。(请参阅框 6.2 中CHILDES 数据库的转录示例。)
Because of the time-intensive nature of collecting, transcribing, and analyzing hours of language data in such close detail, often these observational studies include only small numbers of child participants. Thus, while observational studies such as these get high marks for providing relatively natural data as well as data which are representative of the child’s normal speech, it is not always clear to what extent the few participants are representative of the wider population under study. One way researchers have attempted to overcome this drawback has been to share their transcripts. The primary channel for doing so is the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES; see http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/). CHILDES has allowed researchers not only to examine acquisition patterns and processes across larger numbers of children, but also to investigate how patterns differ across children from different language groups. (See Box 6.2 for an example of a transcript from the CHILDES database.)
这份记录是 2 岁 2 岁的 Ethan 和他母亲之间的对话,来自普罗维登斯数据库,可通过 CHILDES 数据库获取。xx表示难以理解的语音,括号中的单词表示语音不清楚时可能采用的替代发音。有许多不同的数据库可供选择,其中一些是对几个孩子的纵向研究,而其他数据库则根据年龄组、语言、任务和对话类型而有所不同。大多数记录都带有标签,以便可以搜索特定的单词或短语和/或语法结构。不同数据库的标签类型各不相同,具体取决于研究人员的特定研究领域。
This transcript is a conversation between a child, Ethan, age 2;2, and his mother from the Providence database available through the CHILDES database. The xx denote unintelligble speech and the words in parentheses note a potential alternate pronuncation if the speech was unclear. There are many different databases available, some of which are longitudinal studies of several children, while others vary with respect to age group, language, tasks, and type of conversation. Most transcripts are tagged so that they are searchable for particular words or phrases and/or grammatical constructions. The types of tags vary between different databases depending on the researcher’s particular area of study.
(来源:CHILDES 数据库,普罗维登斯:eth33.cha。完整对话可参阅http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/Eng-USA/)
(Source: CHILDES database, Providence: eth33.cha. Full conversation available http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/Eng-USA/)
*CHI:西瓜。*MOT:西瓜?*MOT:这不是西瓜。*CHI:它是浆果。*MOT:它是浆果。*MOT:贝瑞先生。*CHI:这是西瓜浆果。*CHI:西瓜肚[?]xx。*MOT:西瓜肚。*MOT:西瓜肚?*MOT:浆果。*CHI: xx。*CHI:西瓜肚。*MOT:是的[:是的],西瓜肚。
*CHI: watermelon.*MOT: watermelon?*MOT: it’s not watermelon.*CHI: it’s berry.*MOT: it’s berry.*MOT: Mister Berry.*CHI: it’s watermelon berry.*CHI: watermelon belly [?] xx.*MOT: watermelon belly.*MOT: watermelon belly?*MOT: berry.*CHI: xx.*CHI: watermelon belly.*MOT: yeah [: yes], watermelon belly.
实验研究是收集儿童语言数据的第三种方法。一系列方法都属于这一范畴,包括设计更自然的方法和涉及更严格控制测试的方法。一般来说,实验研究倾向于有狭义的研究问题(例如,婴儿在什么年龄可以识别自己的名字或母亲的声音?)并使用更受控制(有时被认为是人工的)的数据收集方法,例如下面描述的 HASP。实验语言数据往往是通过精心设计的技术获得的,而不是在自然展开时观察和描述。最后,实验研究倾向于从每个参与者那里收集较少的数据,但参与者人数较多。这意味着,尽管数据可能不太自然,但它们更有可能准确地代表研究人群。
Experimental studies constitute a third approach to collecting child language data. A wide range of methodological approaches falls under this rubric, including those which are more naturalistic in design and those which involve more tightly controlled tests. In general, experimental studies tend to have narrowly defined research questions (for example, at what age can infants recognize their own name or the sound of their mother’s voice?) and to use more controlled (and sometimes considered artificial) methods of collecting data, such as the HASP described below. Experimental language data tend to be elicited through carefully designed techniques rather than observed and described as they naturally unfold. Lastly, experimental studies tend to collect less data overall from each participant, but to have a greater number of participants. This means that although the data might be less naturalistic, they have a higher chance of accurately representing the population under study.
高振幅吸吮范式( HASP )是研究婴儿何时以及如何开始理解周围语言的最广泛使用的实验程序之一。该程序依赖于婴儿对刺激的反应——特别是,当出现新刺激时,他们会以更高的频率吸吮。使用连接到记录婴儿吸吮速率和强度的机器的奶嘴,研究人员可以测量例如婴儿是否感知到两个相似声音或两个单词(如lice和rice)之间的差异。为了测试这一点,给婴儿一个奶嘴,然后向婴儿展示单词lice。起初,吸吮的频率会增加,但随着lice 的反复出现,婴儿会对声音感到“厌烦”,频率开始下降。此时,呈现rice;如果婴儿的吸吮频率降低,则婴儿的吸吮频率会降低。吸吮频率再次增加,研究人员将此解释为孩子已经检测到新声音的证据,因此可以区分虱子和大米。 如果吸吮频率保持不变,则可以假设孩子无法区分这两种刺激。 这种技术可以用于只有几天大的婴儿,因为所有婴儿出生时都有吸吮能力反射。
One of the most widely used experimental procedures to investigate when and how infants begin to make sense of the language around them is the high-amplitude sucking paradigm (HASP). This procedure relies on infants’ reactions to stimuli – in particular, the fact that they will suck at a higher rate when presented with novel stimuli. Using a pacifier attached to a machine which records the rate and strength of the infant’s sucking, researchers can measure, for instance, whether the infant perceives a difference between two similar sounds or two words, such as lice and rice. In order to test this, the infant is given a pacifier and then presented with, for instance, the word lice. At first, the rate of sucking increases, but as lice is presented repeatedly, the infant becomes “bored” with the sound and the rate begins to decline. At this point, rice is presented; if the rate of sucking increases again, researchers interpret this as evidence that the child has detected the new sound and thus can discriminate between lice and rice. If the rate of sucking remains the same, one can assume the child does not distinguish between the two stimuli. This technique can be used with infants who are only a few days old, as all babies are born with a sucking reflex.
除了旨在测量听觉辨别能力的技术外,还有许多方法可以评估儿童的句法生成和理解能力。例如,在诱导生成中,使用游戏(例如,用木偶)或图片引导儿童生成特定的句子。(下面讨论的“wug”测试就是引发生成的一个例子。另一种常用的方法是真值判断任务。在这个任务中,给孩子看一个故事(通常用木偶表演或用图片展示),然后要求孩子对某个陈述是否准确描述了故事中发生的事情做出是/否判断。这些技术对于揭示我们对儿童早期语言能力的了解非常重要,例如下列的部分。
In addition to techniques aimed at measuring auditory discrimination, there are also a number of methods for assessing the production and comprehension of children’s syntax. For example, in elicited production, a game (for example, with a puppet) or a picture is used to lead children to produce particular sentences. (The “wug” test discussed below is an example of elicited production.) Another commonly used technique is the truth-value judgment task. Here, the child is presented with a story (typically acted out with puppets or shown with pictures) and then asked to render a yes/no judgment about whether a statement accurately describes what happened in the story. Such techniques have been important in revealing much of what we know about children’s early language abilities, the topic of the following section.
所有正常发育的儿童,在学习世界上任何一种口语或手语时,都遵循类似的语言发展路径,并以相同的顺序达到主要里程碑。然而,达到这些里程碑的年龄存在很大差异。
All normally developing children, acquiring any of the world’s spoken or signed languages, follow a similar path of language development and reach the major milestones in the same order. However, there is significant variability in the age at which these milestones are reached.
上述技术使我们对婴儿早期语言能力有了更多的了解,特别是对生命第一年语言感知的发展有了更多的了解。语言感知是婴儿在生命早期发展的关键技能,包括将语音流分割成有意义的单元、在语音流中识别自己的名字或区分发音相似的元音(例如 /ee/ 和 /oo/)。这些早期语言技能还涉及视觉信息;例如,研究表明,两个月大的婴儿就能将他们听到的元音与适当的嘴唇、嘴巴和面部动作相匹配。这些与语言声音结构相关的早期言语感知技能可能有助于婴儿掌握更复杂的语言能力;“引导”是指某一语言领域的技能可能有助于儿童发展其他语言领域的能力。例如,婴儿在语音流中识别自己名字的能力(大约在五个月时出现)可能为他们提供识别新近相邻单词的方法。(见方框 6.3。)
The techniques described above have yielded much of what we know about infant language ability in the early months, and in particular what we know about the development of speech perception during the first year of life. Speech perception – which includes, for instance, the ability to segment the speech stream into meaningful units, to recognize one’s own name in the speech stream, or to distinguish between similar sounding vowels (e.g. /ee/ and /oo/) – is a critical skill that infants develop early in life. These early language skills also involve visual information; for instance, infants as young as two months have been shown to be able to match vowel sounds they hear with the appropriate lip, mouth, and face movements. These early speech perception skills related to the sound structure of language may help infants to bootstrap into more complex language competencies; bootstrapping refers to the possibility that skills in one area of language might help the child to develop competencies in other language areas. For instance, infants’ ability to recognize their own names in the speech stream (which appears around the fifth month) may provide them with a means to recognize novel, adjacent words. (See Box 6.3.)
婴儿如何学习区分语音流并识别单个单词?Bortfeld等人(2005 年)提供的证据表明,婴儿可以利用熟悉的单词(例如他们自己的名字)从流畅的语音流中区分相邻的陌生单词。换句话说,婴儿的名字似乎充当了语音流中的“锚点”,帮助他们消除名字后面的单词的歧义。
How do infants learn to segment the speech stream and to recognize individual words? Bortfeld et al. (2005) provided evidence that infants can exploit familiar words, such as their own names, to segment adjacent unfamiliar words from a fluent stream of speech. In other words, infants’ names appear to serve as an “anchor” in the speech stream, helping them to disambiguate the words which come just after their name.
使用在“转头偏好程序”中,实验者首先让 24 名 6 个月大的婴儿熟悉两段六句段落。在一段中,每句都包含婴儿自己的名字,后面跟着一个新词(例如“Emma 的脚”)。这里,脚是熟悉的名字目标。在另一段中,六句中的每一句都包含一个不同的名字(即不是婴儿自己的名字),后面跟着另一个新词(例如“Autumn 的杯子”)。这里,杯子是替代名字目标。婴儿被配对,这样,一个婴儿的替代名字段落就是另一个婴儿的熟悉名字段落,反之亦然。然后,研究人员试图确定婴儿是否形成了对熟悉名字目标的偏好,而不是替代名字目标(和不熟悉的控制词),方法是对每个目标进行单独测试。刺激通过位于测试室两侧的扬声器呈现;因变量是婴儿朝向播放单词的那一侧的时间。博特菲尔德和她的同事发现,婴儿听熟悉名字的目标的时间明显长于听另一个名字的目标的时间,而婴儿关注另一个名字的目标和不熟悉的对照组的时间没有差异。
Using the “headturn preference procedure,” the experimenters first familiarized 24 six-month-old infants with two six-sentence passages. In one passage, each of the sentences contained the baby’s own name followed by a novel word (e.g. “Emma’s feet”). Here, feet is the familiar-name target. In the other passage, each of the six sentences contained a different name (i.e. not the baby’s own) followed by another novel word (e.g. “Autumn’s cup”). Here, cup is the alternate-name target. Infants were paired so that the alternate-name passage for one infant was the familiar-name passage for another, and vice versa. The researchers then sought to determine whether infants had formed a preference for the familiar-name target relative to the alternate-name target (and nonfamiliarized control words) by testing them on each in isolation. Stimuli were presented through loudspeakers located on each side of a testing booth; the dependent variable was how long infants oriented to the side on which the word was being played. Bortfeld and her colleagues found that the infants listened significantly longer to the familiar-name target than to the alternate-name target, while there was no difference in how long the infants attended to the alternate-name targets and the nonfamiliarized controls.
第二个实验也得出了类似的结果,表明六个月大的婴儿同样表现出对与另一个熟悉的名字(这次是他们母亲的绰号(妈妈或妈妈))相关的单词的偏好,而不是与陌生的名字(Lolly 或 Lola)相关的单词。根据这些结果,研究人员得出结论,熟悉的名字为婴儿提供了一种有用的方法,可以让他们流畅地说话,并区分出名字后面的先前不熟悉的单词。
A second experiment produced similar results, indicating that six-month-old infants likewise displayed a preference for words linked with another familiar name, this time the moniker for their mother (Mommy or Mama), over words linked with an unfamiliar name (Lolly or Lola). Based on these results, the researchers concluded that familiar names provide a useful means for infants to break into a fluent stream of speech and segment out previously unfamiliar words that follow those names.
早期的语音感知研究表明,在出生后的最初几个月里,婴儿能够区分母语和其他语言中相似的声音(例如 /b/ 和 /p/)。然而,随着时间的推移,婴儿会越来越适应母语,而区分声音的能力会下降其他语言例如,珍妮特·沃克和她的同事对印地语和英语成人以及学习英语的婴儿进行了研究,结果表明,虽然学习英语的婴儿(6 至 8 个月大)和印地语成人能够区分印地语中的 /da/ 和 /Da/ 音,但学习英语的成人却无法区分。她的研究表明,学习英语的婴儿似乎很快就失去了这种技能,感知能力最急剧的下降发生在出生后第一年左右。这一系列研究强调了一个事实,即婴儿生来就具有学习世界上任何语言的能力,但像母语人士一样聆听的能力很早就消失了。
Early research in speech perception demonstrated that during their first few months of life, infants are able to discriminate between similar sounds (for example, between /b/ and /p/) both in their native language(s) as well as in other languages. Over time, however, infants become more attuned to their native language(s) and less able to make sound distinctions in other languages. Janet Werker and her colleagues, for instance, working with Hindi- and English-speaking adults and English-learning infants, illustrated that while English-learning infants (six to eight months old) and Hindi-speaking adults could distinguish between the Hindi sounds of /da/ and /Da/, English-speaking adults could not. Her work demonstrated that English-learning infants seem to lose this skill quite quickly, with the sharpest decline in perceptual ability occurring around the end of the first year of life. This line of research underscores the fact that infants are born with the capacity to learn any language in the world, but the capacity to hear like a native fades very early on.
所有婴儿发出的第一声声音都是哭声。所有婴儿从出生起就能立即发出哭声;虽然在出生后的第一个月里哭声可能表示痛苦、不适、无聊或其他情绪,但这并不是有意的交流。从大约第二个月到第五个月,婴儿开始发出咕咕的声音。咕咕声通常是类似元音的声音,常被理解为愉快和嬉戏的表现。
The first sound made by all infants is crying. All infants can do this immediately from birth; although crying may signal distress, discomfort, boredom, or other emotions in the first month of life, it is not an intentional attempt to communicate. From about the second to fifth month, infants engage in cooing. Coos are generally vowel-like sounds that are often interpreted as signs of pleasure and playfulness.
所有婴儿在 4 到 6 个月之间开始牙牙学语,并且通常会持续到 1 岁左右。牙牙学语的特点是发出元音或辅音元音,例如ouw-ouw或ma-ma。在这个年龄,婴儿的舌头往往相对于嘴巴的大小来说比较大,因此,这些发音通常是腭音,例如 [y] 或 [ñ]。唇音,例如 [b] 和 [m] 也很常见。牙牙学语在 6 至 10 个月大时开始符合成人语言的发音模式,成年母语人士表现出辨别中文、阿拉伯语、英语或法语婴儿牙牙学语的能力。
All infants begin to babble anywhere between four and six months and generally continue to do so until they reach around one year of age. Babbling is characterized by vowel or consonant–vowel sounds such as ouw-ouw or ma-ma. At this age, infants’ tongues tend to be relatively large compared to the size of their mouths, and as a result, these sounds will often be palatals, such as [y] or [ñ]. Labial sounds such as [b] and [m] are also common. Babbling begins to conform to the sound patterns of the adults’ language between six and ten months of age, with adult native speakers showing the ability to discriminate the babbles of Chinese, Arabic, English, or French infants.
牙牙学语似乎是天生的、无意识的,但也是互动的、社交的。所有婴儿,包括天生失聪的婴儿,都会经历一段口语牙牙学语的时期。失聪婴儿的口语牙牙学语往往由较少的声音组成,以某些辅音(如鼻音和擦音)为主。他们的牙牙学语是随机的,通常不是互动的,而且比听力正常的婴儿牙牙学语要快。然而,正在学习手语的失聪婴儿,如学习美国手语 (ASL) 的婴儿也会经历一段“手势咿呀学语”时期,这种时期与手语相对应,与没有接触过这种语言的听力正常的婴儿随意做出的手势大不相同。虽然这种咿呀学语对听力正常或听力障碍的婴儿没有任何意义(例如对食物的需求),但它可以成为互动游戏的来源。在某些文化中,看护人的微笑或触摸会鼓励婴儿继续咿呀学语,或者婴儿自己也咿呀学语作为回应。婴儿通常会停止咿呀学语,以便倾听对话者(有时会进行众所周知的互惠互利交流)作为原始对话),大约在五个月时,一些婴儿能够立即模仿呈现给婴儿的简单声音序列。他们。
Babbling is seemingly innate and unconscious, but also interactive and social. All infants, including those who are born deaf, go through a period of oral babbling. Deaf infants’ oral babbling tends to consist of a smaller total number of sounds, with certain consonants (e.g. nasals and fricatives) predominating. Their babbling is random, generally not interactive, and tapers off sooner than that of hearing infants. However, deaf infants who are learning a signed language, such as American Sign Language (ASL), also go through a period of “gestural babbling,” which corresponds to signed language and greatly differs from the much more random gesturing of hearing babies without this exposure. Although there is no meaning (such as a demand for food) associated with this babbling for hearing or for deaf infants, it can be a source of interactive play. In some cultures, infants are encouraged to continue to babble by caregivers’ smiles or touches, or by their own babbling in return. Infants will often stop babbling in order to listen to their interlocutor (sometimes engaging in give-and-take exchanges known as proto-conversations), and around the fifth month, some infants are able to immediately imitate simple sound sequences presented to them.
大约在他们一岁生日的时候,孩子们开始为他们发出的声音赋予特定的含义。这些最初的单词标志着所谓的全词阶段的开始。全词阶段的意思是“以单词句子为特征”;婴儿倾向于使用单个单词来传达各种复杂的功能。例如,妈妈这个词可能是在寻求母亲的关注,看到母亲走过时做出的描述性评论,或者要求母亲通常会提供的东西,比如食物。通过上下文线索,父母经常声称理解这些全词的含义(参与有时是被称为“丰富的解释”),尽管这很难通过实证来验证。虽然父母常常为孩子早早开口说话而感到自豪,但几乎没有证据表明,说出第一句话的时间与以后的智力或实现其他发展里程碑的年龄相对应。(事实上,据报道,阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦直到三四岁才开始说话!)此外,没有证据表明学习两种语言会导致语言延迟。(见方框 6.4。)
Sometime around their first birthdays, children begin to assign specific meanings to the sounds they produce. These first words mark the beginning of what is known as the holophrastic stage. Holophrastic means ‘characterized by one-word sentences’; infants tend to use single words to communicate a variety of complex functions. For instance, the word mama might be a bid for mother’s attention, a descriptive comment upon seeing mother walk past, or a request for something which mother typically provides, such as food. Through contextual cues, parents often claim to understand the meaning of these holophrases (engaging in what is sometimes called “rich interpretation”), although this is difficult to verify empirically. While parents are often very proud of a child who is an early talker, there is little evidence that the timing of the first words corresponds to later intelligence or age of achievement of other developmental milestones. (Indeed, Albert Einstein reportedly did not start talking until age three or four!) Further, there is no evidence that learning two languages results in language delay. (See Box 6.4.)
人们普遍认为,学习多种语言会导致语言习得的整体延迟。为了验证这一假设,Pearson等人(1997)比较了两组年龄从八个月到两岁半的儿童。一组儿童只学习英语,而另一组儿童同时学习英语和西班牙语。父母被要求完成有关孩子能说出哪些单词的问卷。研究结果显示,双语儿童掌握这两种语言的速度和时间表与单语儿童相同。此外,当将双语儿童的西班牙语和英语单词加在一起形成一个列表时,他们的词汇量与单语儿童的词汇量相似。将总词汇量划分为两种语言似乎会导致双语儿童对一种语言词汇习得的“延迟”。然而,等到孩子四五岁时,也就是所有孩子完全掌握一门语言所需的时间,双语儿童的词汇量与单语儿童的词汇量相同(如果将两种语言的词汇量相加,则是单语儿童的两倍)。
It is widely believed that learning more than one language causes a delay in language acquisition overall. In order to test this assumption, Pearson et al. (1997) compared two groups of children ranging from eight months to two and a half years. One group consisted of children acquiring English only, while the other were acquiring English and Spanish simultaneously. Parents were asked to complete questionnaires regarding the words their children could produce. The findings revealed that bilingual children acquired the two languages at the same rate and timetable as the monolingual children. In addition, when the bilingual children’s Spanish and English words were added together in one list, the size of their vocabulary list was similar to the size of the monolingual children’s vocabulary. This division of the total vocabulary list between two languages would appear to be a “delay” in the acquistion of the vocabulary of one language by bilingual children. However, by the time children reach the age of four or five, the time it takes all children to become fully fluent in even one language, the bilingual children have vocabularies equal to that of their monolingual peers (or twice that of their monolingual peers if one adds the vocabularies of both languages).
此阶段儿童的词汇往往是具体物体,这些物体扎根于日常体验和互动之中(例如光、树、水),而不是抽象概念(和平、幸福)。这些最初的词汇往往而是内容词(bear或bed)比功能词(the、and、on)多。对于学习英语的儿童来说,大多数第一个词都是名词。这似乎与英语句子通常以名词结尾有关,因为名词对学习者来说更突出或更引人注目。然而,对于学习所有语言的儿童来说,情况并非如此。例如,如下所述,学习韩语的婴儿的第一个词通常是动词;在韩语中,动词是句子的结尾,句子可能只由动词组成。
Children’s words at this stage tend to be concrete objects which are grounded in and central to everyday experiences and interactions (such as light, tree, water), rather than abstract concepts (peace, happiness). These first words tend to be content words (bear or bed) rather than function words (the, and, on). For children learning English, most first words are nouns. This seems to be related to the fact that sentences in English typically end with nouns, where they are salient, or more noticeable, to learners. This is not the case for children learning all languages, however. For instance, as discussed below, Korean-learning infants’ first words are often verbs; in the Korean language, verbs are sentence-final and sentences may consist of only a verb.
在努力掌握周围的词汇时,孩子们经常会陷入语义过度扩展和语义扩展不足的境地。例如,一个孩子可能会过度扩展单词water的含义不仅包括饮用水,还包括果汁、牛奶和苏打水。 延伸不足似乎不太常见,指的是相反的现象:例如,孩子可能只用baby来指代婴儿兄弟姐妹,而不指代他/她遇到的其他婴儿。
While working to master the vocabulary around them, children often engage in both semantic overextension and underextension. For instance, a child may overextend the meaning of the word water to include not just drinking water, but also juice, milk, and soda. Underextension, which seems to be less common, refers to the reverse phenomenon: a child, for example, might use baby only to refer to an infant sibling and not to the other babies he/she encounters.
大约两岁左右,儿童进入双词阶段,其特点是使用不超过两个词的短语。对于学习英语的婴儿来说,这通常意味着将主语和动词结合起来(例如baby cry、mama sleep)或将动词和修饰语结合起来(例如eat now、go out)。然而,这些双词短语的顺序并不固定,而且语法形态的系统使用往往有限(例如,所有格形成为Lucia bed而不是Lucia's bed)。
Around age two, children enter the two-word stage, characterized by use of phrases which are not more than two words. For English-learning infants, this typically means combining a subject and verb (e.g. baby cry, mama sleep) or a verb and modifier (e.g. eat now, go out). The ordering of these two-word phrases is not fixed, however, and there tends to be limited systematic use of grammatical morphology (for example, the possessive is formed as Lucia bed rather than Lucia’s bed).
和语言发展的其他许多阶段一样,儿童理解单词的能力超过了他们生成单词的能力。例如,在一岁左右,儿童通常可以理解大约七十个不同的单词,但只能有效地使用大约六个。从儿童能够理解一定数量的单词到他们自己能够生成这么多单词之间大约有四到六个月的延迟。大约在第二年年底,儿童的生成词汇量开始迅速发展;这有时被称为词汇量激增。在此期间,孩子们开始每月增加大约两百个单词!
As in many other stages of their linguistic development, children’s capacity for comprehending words outpaces their production ability. For instance, around the age of one, children can typically understand about seventy different words, but only productively use about six. There is about a four- to six-month delay between when children can comprehend a given number of words and when they can produce that many words themselves. Sometime around the end of the second year, children’s productive vocabulary begins to develop rapidly; this is sometimes known as the vocabulary spurt. During this period, children begin to add about two hundred words a month to their vocabularies!
大约两岁半时,儿童开始说出三个或更多单词的短语,进入多词阶段(例如Graham go out、Daddy cook dinner、Esperanza food all gone)。此阶段儿童的语言被描述为电报语音,因为就像电报中使用的经济语言一样,它看似直接,并且仅有限地使用形态和句法标记。
At approximately two and half years of age, children begin to produce phrases of three or more words, entering the multi-word stage (e.g. Graham go out, Daddy cook dinner, Esperanza food all gone). Children’s language at this stage has been described as telegraphic speech because, like the economical language used in telegraphs, it is seemingly direct and makes only limited use of morphological and syntactic markers.
许多日记、观察和实验研究已经记录并探索了如何 儿童成为其语言形态和句法系统的熟练使用者。从这项研究中,我们知道,对于所有语言,无论是手语还是口语,这个过程似乎都涉及内部“规则”的形成;换句话说,儿童越来越频繁地使用语法形式(甚至是非成人或“不正确”的用法,如 broked或foots)可能反映了儿童正在发展语法规则系统。
Many diary, observational, and experimental studies have documented and explored how children become competent users of their language’s system of morphology and syntax. From this research, we know that for all languages, both signed and spoken, this process seems to involve the formation of internal “rules”; in other words, children’s increasingly regular use of grammatical forms (even non-adultlike or “incorrect” usages such as broked or foots) may reflect children’s developing grammatical rule systems.
我们还知道,儿童似乎在很小的时候就开始掌握这种语法能力,而且,就像词汇发展一样,理解能力的发展速度超过了表达能力。例如,只有 17 个月大、通常只能说出一个或两个单词的儿童,往往会花更长时间看与口头评论语法正确对应的视频片段。例如,当孩子们听到“熊坐在鸟身上”并看到两张图片(一张是熊坐在鸟身上,另一张是鸟坐在熊身上)时,他们会花更长时间看熊坐在鸟身上的图片。这项研究表明,即使在很小的时候,孩子们也能理解他们语言的语法语义意义 结构。
We also know that children seem to begin to acquire this grammatical competence at a very young age and, as in vocabulary development, comprehension skills outpace production. For instance, children who are only seventeen months of age, and typically still producing only one- or two-word utterances, tend to look longer at video clips that correctly correspond to the grammar of the oral commentary. For instance, children who hear “The bear sat on the bird” and are shown two pictures (one of a bear sitting on a bird and another of a bird sitting on a bear) will look longer at the picture where the bear is sitting on the bird. This research demonstrates that even at very young ages children are tuned into the semantic significance of their language’s grammatical structures.
研究还表明,形态和句法的发展是可预测的。换句话说,所有儿童都遵循相似的模式,并在能力发展过程中经历相同的发展顺序。尽管根据所学语言的不同会有所不同,但许多模式和过程在不同的语言和文化群体中是一致的。下面我们将重点介绍儿童学习英语的这些模式;在下一节中,我们将重点介绍一些已记录的跨语言和跨文化差异。
Research has also demonstrated that morphological and syntactic development is predictable. In other words, all children follow similar patterns and pass through the same developmental sequences as their competence develops. Although there is some variation depending on the language being acquired, many patterns and processes are constant across different language and cultural groups. Below we focus on these patterns for children acquiring English; in the following section, we’ll highlight some of the crosslinguistic and crosscultural differences that have been documented.
一旦儿童进入多词阶段一直持续到五岁。屈折形态的发展是早期深入研究的重点。布朗对亚当、莎拉和夏娃的研究(如上所述)在这一领域取得了重要进展。(见 方框 6.5。)
The development of inflectional and derivational morphology in children’s productive language becomes apparent once the child enters the multiple-word stage and continues through age five. The development of inflectional morphology was the focus of early and intensive investigation. Brown’s investigation of Adam, Sarah, and Eve, discussed above, made important advances in this area. (See Box 6.5.)
下表列出了三个孩子语法形式的习得阶段。他们在每个阶段的年龄以斜体括号表示。括号中的第一个数字代表年份,第二个数字代表月份。因此,2;3表示孩子两岁零三个月。
This table presents the stages of acquisition of grammatical forms by three children. Their ages at each stage are presented in italicized parentheses. The first number in the parentheses represents the year and the second the month. Thus 2;3 signifies that the child is two years and three months old.
注:表格改编自 Brown ( 1973 )。
Note: Table adapted from Brown (1973).
阶段(I-V)对应于平均话语长度(MLU):阶段 I,MLU = 1.75;阶段 II,MLU = 2.25;阶段 III,MLU = 2.75;阶段 IV,MLU = 3.50;阶段 V,MLU = 4。语法形式的习得被定义为三个连续的样本,其中词素在必需的上下文中出现的概率至少为 90%。
Stages (I–V) correspond to mean length of utterance (MLU): stage I, MLU = 1.75; stage II, MLU = 2.25; stage III, MLU = 2.75; stage IV, MLU = 3.50; stage V, MLU = 4. Acquisition of a grammatical form was defined as three successive samples in which the morpheme appears at least 90 percent of the time in obligatory contexts.
要计算 MLU,请计算儿童语言转录样本的前 100 个话语。接下来,计算每个话语中的词素数量,然后将所有 100 个话语中的词素数量相加。最后,将总数除以 100 得到话语的平均长度。如果没有 100 个话语,请计算您拥有的话语数量,然后将词素总数除以话语数量(改编自 Brown 1973)。将连词(例如wanna、doncha)算作一个词素。另外,不要计算填充词(um、oh)或声音(aack等)。
To calculate the MLU, count the first 100 utterances of a transcribed sample of a child’s language. Next, count the number of morphemes in each utterance and then add up the number of morphemes in all of the 100 utterances. Finally, divide this total by 100 to get the mean length of utterance. If you don’t have 100 utterances, count the number of utterances you have and divide the total number of morphemes by the number of utterances (adapted from Brown 1973). Count catenatives (e.g. wanna, doncha) as one morpheme. Also, don’t count fillers (um, oh) or sounds (aack, etc.).
通过分析亚当、莎拉和夏娃的自发性言语,布朗找出了不同语法词素在他们的言语中持续出现的时间,以及这与语言其他方面,特别是平均话语长度 (MLU)的对应关系。MLU 是广泛使用的儿童语言复杂性测量标准,是根据每句话语的平均词素(而非单词)数量计算得出的。布朗说明:(1)三个不熟悉词汇的儿童的习得顺序相似(现在进行时、复数和过去不规则动词形式首先出现);(2)儿童掌握这些形式能力的年龄差异很大(例如,比较框 6.5中两岁零三个月时的夏娃和亚当);(3)MLU 阶段是语法形态发展水平的一个很好的指标(实际上它比年龄更能预测语法发展)。最近的研究强调了词汇作为语法发展预测因素的重要性。
Through analysis of Adam, Sarah, and Eve’s spontaneous speech, Brown mapped out when different grammatical morphemes consistently appeared in their speech and how this corresponded to other aspects of their language, in particular to mean length of utterance (MLU). MLU is a widely used measurement of the complexity of children’s language and is calculated from the average number of morphemes (not words) per utterance. Brown illustrated that: (1) the order of acquisition was similar across the three unacquainted children (with present progressive, plural, and past irregular verb forms appearing first); (2) the age at which children acquired competence in using these forms varied widely (compare, for instance, Eve and Adam at age two years and three months in Box 6.5); and (3) the MLU stage served as a good index of the level of development for grammatical morphology (and indeed was much more predictive of grammatical development than age). More recent research has stressed the importance of vocabulary as a predictor of grammatical development.
另一项早期研究揭示了儿童何时习得屈折形态,那就是 Jean Berko 著名的“wug”研究。与记录和分析为了测试儿童的自发性言语能力,伯科要求不同年龄段的儿童说出一些未知的、无意义的生物的复数形式,例如“wugs”。(见图6.2。)实验者指着一个物品说:“这是 wug。”然后她展示了一张有同样两只动物的图片,并说:“现在这里是另一只。它们有两个。有两个____?” Berko 发现,即使是学龄前儿童也能够正确地形成复数,这表明他们已经学会了形成复数的规则,并能在新的语境中正确地应用这一规则,而不仅仅是重复他们以前学过的形式听到。
Another early study which sheds light on when children acquire inflectional morphology was Jean Berko’s famous “wug” study. Rather than recording and analyzing children’s spontaneous speech as Brown did, Berko asked young children of different ages to form the plural of unknown, nonsense creatures, such as “wugs.” (See Figure 6.2.) The experimenter pointed to an item and said, “This is a wug.” She then showed a picture with the same two animals and said, “Now here is another one. There are two of them. There are two____?” Berko found that even preschool children were able to form the plural correctly, demonstrating that they had learned the rule for forming plurals and could apply this rule correctly in novel contexts, and were not just repeating forms which they had previously heard.
在发展这些规则的过程中,儿童会经历可预测的阶段。例如,儿童在习得的早期阶段会过度概括,这意味着他们将常规语法规则应用于不规则名词和动词。过度概括会导致我们有时会在幼儿讲话中听到诸如goed、eated、foots和fishes等形式。这个过程通常被描述为由三个阶段组成:
In developing these rules, children pass through predictable stages. For instance, children overgeneralize in the early phases of acquisition, meaning that they apply the regular rules of grammar to irregular nouns and verbs. Overgeneralization leads to forms that we sometimes hear in the speech of young children such as goed, eated, foots, and fishes. This process is often described as consisting of three phases:
请注意,从观察者或家长的角度来看,这种发展是“U 形”的——也就是说,进入第二阶段后,儿童使用过去时态的准确性似乎在下降而不是上升。然而,这种明显的“倒退”是语言能力下降的重要标志发展。
Note that from the observer’s or parents’ perspectives, this development is “U-shaped” – that is, children can appear to be decreasing rather than increasing in their accuracy of past-tense use as they enter phase 2. However, this apparent “back-sliding” is an important sign of linguistic development.
我们在语法的其他领域也看到了类似的模式,称为“发展序列”,例如英语否定和疑问句的形成。如框 6.6中所述,儿童经历了可识别的阶段,尽管这些阶段是连续和重叠的,而不是离散的。请注意,从父母的角度来看,儿童的发展也并不总是一帆风顺的。例如,孩子可能会提出倒置的是非问题(威廉吃了蛋糕吗?),同时仍然使用正常的陈述语序来回答疑问句(米兰达怎么出去了?)。(有关第二语言习得的相关发展模式,请参阅第 13 章。)
We see similar patterns, known as “developmental sequences,” in other areas of grammar, such as the formation of English negatives and interrogatives. As outlined in Box 6.6, children move through identifiable stages, although these stages are more continuous and overlapping than discrete. Note that from the parents’ perspective, children’s development is also not always straightforward. For instance, a child is likely to produce inverted yes/no questions (Did William eat cake?), while still using normal declarative word order for wh-questions (How Miranda go out?). (See Chapter 13 for related developmental patterns in second language acquisition.)
这些数据突出了否定和疑问句的发展相互关联,并且依赖于必要词汇的发展。例如,疑问句和否定句都依赖于动词辅助系统(包括,例如,do、does、did、is、am、have、has)和情态动词(例如,can、could、may、might)的习得。这些数据还表明了儿童语言产生的规则支配性质:这里例子中的“错误”通常不是儿童重复他们周围的语言的结果;相反,它们反映了儿童语言的发展规则系统。最后,虽然研究人员普遍倾向于解释儿童所犯的“错误”,但值得强调的是,鉴于不正确或非常规语言使用的机会很多,语法错误实际上相当罕见,这或许反映了儿童对语法的高度保守(和规避风险)态度。学习和概括。
These data highlight the extent to which negation and interrogative development are interrelated and also dependent upon development of the necessary vocabulary. For instance, both questions and negatives are dependent upon acquisition of the verb auxiliary system (including, for instance, do, does, did, is, am, have, has) and modals (for example, can, could, may, might). These data also demonstrate the rule-governed nature of children’s language production: the “mistakes” in the examples here are generally not the result of children repeating the language that surrounds them; rather, they reflect the developing rule system of children’s language. Lastly, while there has been a general tendency for researchers to focus on explaining the “mistakes” that children make, it is worth stressing that, given the many opportunities for incorrect or unconventional language use, grammatical errors are in fact quite uncommon, perhaps reflecting children’s highly conservative (and risk-averse) approach to learning and generalization.
正如我们所见,无论学习哪种语言,所有儿童都会以相同的顺序经历语言发展的重要里程碑。然而,语言系统存在巨大差异;例如,普通话使用词汇声调,克丘亚语标记证据性(见第 2 章,第 96 页),而英语则没有。这样的差异表明,不同语言的使用者使用相同的基本心理机制(例如,工作记忆或感知处理),但可能根据所讲的语言以不同的方式使用它们。
As we’ve seen, all children pass through the major milestones of language development in the same order regardless of the language they are learning. However, language systems differ in dramatic ways; for example, Mandarin uses lexical tone, Quechua marks evidentiality (see Chapter 2, p. 96), while English does neither. Variation like this suggests that speakers of different languages use the same basic mental mechanisms (for instance, working memory or perceptual processing) but may use them differently depending on the language being spoken.
由于大量语言习得研究都是针对英语儿童进行的,因此有时很难区分英语特有的过程和通用过程——即所有语言都共有的过程。然而,近几十年来,人们大力推动从跨语言角度探索母语习得。总体而言,这项研究表明,虽然许多模式适用于所有语言,但也存在一些重要且有趣的差异。我们在此重点介绍词汇和语法发展方面的一些发现。
Because so much of the research on language acquisition has been conducted among English-speaking children, it is difficult at times to distinguish between English-specific processes and universal processes – that is, those that are common to all languages. In recent decades, however, there has been a major push to explore first language acquisition from a crosslinguistic perspective. Overall, this research has shown that, while there are many patterns that hold true across all languages, there are also some important and intriguing differences. We highlight some of the findings in terms of lexical and grammatical development here.
已经对十几种语言进行了关于词汇理解和词汇产出的比较和跨语言研究,包括南非语、克罗地亚语、荷兰手语和瑞典语等多种语言。这项研究依赖于标准化的父母报告工具,得出了两个似乎普遍适用的结论:(1)不同语言的词汇理解(8 至 10 个月)和词汇产出(11 至 13 个月)的开始时间似乎非常相似;(2)广泛每种语言的词汇量增长速度和规模都存在个体差异(例如,两岁时,儿童的生产性词汇量范围是 1 到 500 个)。
Comparative and crosslinguistic research on word comprehension and production has been conducted in more than a dozen languages, including such diverse languages as Afrikaans, Croatian, Sign Language of the Netherlands, and Swedish. This research, which relies on standardized parental report instruments, has reached two conclusions which seem to hold universally: (1) onset times appear very similar across languages for both word comprehension (eight to ten months) and word production (eleven to thirteen months); and (2) wide individual variation exists within each language concerning the pace and size of vocabulary growth (for example, at two years, children’s productive vocabularies range from 1 to 500 items).
关于词汇生成的另一项研究方向涉及名词和动词的出现。 虽然人们长期以来认为名词是儿童语言中第一个出现的单词 演讲,最近研究韩语的研究人员认为,情况并非普遍如此。Gopnik 和 Choi ( 1995 ) 提供的数据表明,动词是韩国儿童最先习得的词类之一,这一事实可能与他们在韩语中突出的句末位置有关。他们进一步指出,这种差异对认知发展有影响;例如,韩国儿童往往在与动词相关的任务(工具使用测试)上表现更好,而讲英语的儿童在与名词相关的任务(对象分类)上表现更好测试)。
Another line of research on word production concerns the emergence of nouns and verbs. While it was long believed that nouns were the first words to appear in children’s speech, researchers examining Korean recently have argued that this is not universally the case. Gopnik and Choi (1995) presented data demonstrating that verbs are among the first items acquired by Korean children, a fact probably related to their salient sentence-final position in Korean. They further suggest that this difference holds implications for cognitive development; for example, Korean children tend to perform better on tasks which are related to verbs (tool-usage tests), while English-speaking children perform better on noun-related tasks (object categorization tests).
其他跨语言研究则侧重于语法能力的发展。世界各地的幼儿似乎都在利用他们正在发展的语法能力来尝试表达类似的意图,例如所有格、位置和意志。然而,幼儿用来表达这些含义的语言形式存在着重大差异。这些差异反映了幼儿所习得语言的性质。例如,土耳其儿童似乎在两岁时就掌握了整个格形态系统,这反映了土耳其语屈折系统的高度规律性和语音显著性。类似地,意大利儿童使用关系从句的程度比讲英语的儿童高得多,这可能反映了这种形式在意大利语中常见语用功能中出现的频率。
Other crosslinguistic research has focused on the development of grammatical competence. Across the world, young children seem to use their developing grammatical competence to attempt to convey similar intents, including, for instance, possession, location, and volition. Nevertheless, there are important differences in the linguistic forms that young children use to convey these meanings. These differences reflect the nature of the language being acquired by the young child. For instance, Turkish children appear to have mastered the entire system of case morphology at age two, reflecting the high degree of regularity and phonological saliency of the Turkish inflectional system. Similarly, young Italian children use relative clauses to a much greater degree than young English-speaking children, possibly reflecting the frequency of this form for common pragmatic functions in Italian.
不同语言之间的结构差异影响着每种语言发展顺序的性质。例如,回想一下框 6.6中讨论过的英语 wh 疑问句形成的发展顺序。因为英语 wh 疑问句需要倒置词序和使用助动词,所以即使是多词阶段的儿童也仍然会说出诸如“她在哪里睡觉?”这样的话语。学习不需要助动词来形成疑问句的语言(如意大利语或西班牙语)的儿童从小在使用疑问句时听起来就更像“成人”。例如,讲西班牙语的儿童从更小的年龄就可以正确地形成同样的疑问句 – ¿Dónde dormió?(字面意思是“在哪里睡觉?”)。
These structural differences across languages influence the nature of the developmental sequence for each language. For instance, recall the developmental sequence for the formation of English wh-questions discussed in Box 6.6. Because English wh-questions require inversion of word order and use of an auxiliary verb, even children in the multi-word stage still produce utterances such as Where she sleep? Children who are learning languages which do not require auxiliaries for question formation, such as Italian or Spanish, sound much more “adultlike” in the use of their questions from a young age. Spanish-speaking children, for instance, correctly form the same question – ¿Dónde dormió? (literally “where sleep?”) – from a younger age.
除了这些重要的跨语言差异外,跨文化差异也十分显著。世界各地的儿童出生在不同的交流系统中。这些系统可能强调育儿的不同方面,对语言使用和“好”孩子的含义持有不同的意识形态,这通常会导致与婴儿及其周围的不同互动模式。 例如,埃莉诺·奥克斯描述了萨摩亚人的照料模式与大多数美国家庭的照料模式有何巨大差异。最值得注意的是,萨摩亚儿童被认为没有个性或无法控制自己的行为;因此,与美国常见的育儿做法形成鲜明对比的是,年幼的孩子不会被要求主动说话,他们早期的发声也不会被解读为有意义的交流尝试。
In addition to these important crosslinguistic differences, there are also significant crosscultural differences. Children are born into distinct communicative systems around the world. These systems potentially stress different aspects of child-rearing and hold different ideologies concerning language use and what it means to be a “good” child, often resulting in different interactional patterns with and around the infant. Elinor Ochs, for instance, describes how Samoan caregiving patterns differ dramatically from those of most US households. Most notably, young Samoan children are not believed to have individual personalities or control over their behavior; thus, in sharp contrast to common parenting practices in the US, very young children are not expected to initiate talk and their early vocalizations are not interpreted as meaningful attempts to communicate.
这种语言社会化实践的差异在幼儿时期就很明显:例如,在中美洲家庭中,婴儿的互动大多是与多个社会伙伴,而在欧洲裔美国人家庭中,婴儿的互动大多是一次与一个成年人。在美国,欧洲裔美国母亲往往积极参与与孩子的言语交流,并更加关注任务特定目标(如按时间顺序组织叙述)比社交对话目标(如包括所有在场的人)更重要。(见方框 6.7。)相比之下,在拉丁裔家庭的高度社交环境中,母亲的角色可能是支持孩子与他人的对话。例如,研究人员报告说,墨西哥裔美国家庭成员明确指导不会说话的婴儿通过使用dile(“告诉他/她”)参与社交对话。通过这些早期的互动,孩子们从很小的时候就学会参与多方对话。
Such differences in language socialization practices are apparent at a young age: for instance, in Central American homes, infants’ interactions are mostly with multiple social partners, whereas in European-American homes, infants’ interactions are mostly with one adult person at a time. In the United States, European-American mothers tend to actively participate in verbal exchanges with their children and place greater attention on task-specific goals (like organizing a narrative chronologically) than on social conversational goals (like including all those present in the conversation). (See Box 6.7.) In contrast, in the highly social environments of Latino homes, mothers’ roles might be to support children’s conversations with others. For example, researchers have reported that Mexican-American family members explicitly instructed preverbal infants to participate in social conversations through the use of dile (‘tell him/her’). Through these early interactions, children learn to participate in multiparty conversations from a very young age.
除了研究语法习得的跨语言差异外,研究人员还研究了语言其他方面的跨文化差异,例如叙事。正如可以预料的那样,典型故事的组织、呈现和内容因文化而异。儿童通过与父母的互动学习这些特定文化的叙事惯例。
In addition to investigating crosslinguistic differences in the acquisition of grammar, researchers have also examined crosscultural differences in other aspects of language, such as narratives. As might be expected, the organization, presentation, and content of typical stories vary from one culture to the next. Children learn these culture-specific conventions for narratives through interaction with their parents.
在一项针对中美洲讲西班牙语的母亲和欧洲裔美国母亲的比较研究中,Gigliana Melzi ( 2000 ) 试图确定两组母亲在支持或培养孩子的叙事技巧方面是否存在差异。为此,研究人员拜访了母亲和她们的学龄前儿童,并要求孩子们谈论他们经历过的四件过去的事情。研究人员根据一系列指标比较了母亲和孩子之间的交流。
In one study to compare Spanish-speaking mothers from Central America and English-speaking mothers of European-American descent, Gigliana Melzi (2000) sought to determine if there were differences in how the two groups of mothers supported or scaffolded their children’s narrative skills. To this end, the researcher visited the mothers and their preschool children in their homes and asked the children to talk about four past events the children had experienced. The exchanges between the mothers and their children were compared on a range of measures.
梅尔齐的结论是,两组母亲在支持孩子参与有关过去经历的谈话的方式上存在显著差异。因此,中美洲母亲是积极的倾听者,让孩子更多地掌控讲故事的过程,而较少关心故事的整体组织,而欧洲裔美国母亲则更积极地帮助孩子组织叙述并加入相关信息。至于造成这种差异的原因,梅尔齐推测可能是由于这两组母亲的社会化目标不同。她解释说,拉丁裔父母通常“更重视人际关系和适当的社交举止,而欧洲裔美国父母则更重视自主权和认知技能的发展”(2000:173)。
Melzi concluded that there were significant differences between the two groups of mothers and the ways in which they supported their children’s contributions to conversations about past experiences. Thus, while Central American mothers served as active listeners, giving their children more control over the storytelling process and showing less concern for the overall organization of the story, European-American mothers took a more active role in helping the children organize the narrative and include relevant information. As for the reason for this difference, Melzi speculates that it may be due to the socialization goals of the two groups. As she explains, Latino parents typically “place greater emphasis on interpersonal relations and appropriate social demeanor, whereas European-American parents place greater emphasis on autonomy and the development of cognitive skills” (2000: 173).
这项研究表明,此类沟通模式会影响儿童在课堂上的语言和读写互动,以及更广泛的学校表现。例如,雪莉·布莱斯·希思 (Shirley Brice Heath) 展示了美国南部不同社区的文化交流模式如何为孩子们在学校的语言和读写任务提供不同的准备。
This line of research suggests that communication patterns such as these influence children’s language and literacy interactions in the classroom as well as their school performance more generally. Shirley Brice Heath, for example, demonstrated how cultural patterns of communication in different communities in the US South prepared children differently for language and literacy tasks at school.
本节要讨论的语言习得的最后一个差异不是学习哪种语言,而是孩子掌握的语言数量。在美国,单语和单语育儿仍然是常态。然而,在世界其他许多地方,双语和多语育儿才是标准。事实上,据估计,世界上大约有一半的人在成长过程中讲不止一种语言,这一事实为方框 6.8中的笑话提供了真相。
The final difference in language acquisition to be discussed in this section concerns not which languages are being learned, but rather the number of languages acquired by a child. In the United States, monolingualism and monolingual child-rearing remains the norm. In many other parts of the world, however, bilingual and multilingual child-rearing are standard. Indeed, it is estimated that roughly half of the world grows up speaking more than one language, a fact which provides the kernel of truth for the joke in Box 6.8.
问:你如何称呼能说三种语言的人?答案:能说三种语言。问:你如何称呼能说两种语言的人?答案:双语。问:你如何称呼只会说一种语言的人?答案:美国人!
QUESTION: What do you call someone who speaks three languages?ANSWER: A trilingual.QUESTION: What to you call someone who speaks two languages?ANSWER: A bilingual.QUESTION: What do you call someone who speaks just one language?ANSWER: An American!
由于单语现象在美国非常普遍,长期以来,美国国内(以及其他国家)一直有一种倾向,认为单语现象是常态或标准,在某些情况下,甚至认为是可取的。事实上,直到 20 世纪 60 年代,大多数心理学研究都倾向于支持双语会导致智力低下和认知能力下降的观点。
Because monolingualism is so prevalent in the United States, there has long been a tendency within the country (but also elsewhere) to view it as the norm or standard, and in some instances, even as desirable. In fact, up until the 1960s, most psychological research tended to support the notion that bilingualism resulted in lower intelligence and diminished cognitive abilities.
随着 Peal 和 Lambert ( 1962 ) 对加拿大蒙特利尔的法语-英语双语者进行研究,这一范式发生了巨大转变。与以前的双语研究不同,这些研究人员采取了重要措施来确保各组具有可比性;例如,Peal 和 Lambert 测试的单语者和双语者来自相似的社会和经济背景。这项研究随后得到了许多其他调查的支持,表明在 18 个衡量智力的变量中,双语者在 15 个方面的表现优于单语者。双语者似乎表现出更强的元语言意识(对语言作为一个系统的知识和意识)和思维灵活性,以及更抽象的思维能力。
This paradigm shifted dramatically with Peal and Lambert’s (1962) research among French–English bilinguals in Montreal, Canada. Unlike previous research on bilingualism, these researchers took important steps to ensure that the groups were comparable; so, as an example, the monolinguals and bilinguals tested by Peal and Lambert came from similar social and economic backgrounds. This research, which was subsequently supported by many other investigations, demonstrated that bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on 15 of the 18 variables measuring intelligence. The bilinguals seemed to demonstrate greater metalinguistic awareness (knowledge and awareness about language as a system) and mental flexibility, as well as the ability to think more abstractly.
然而,尽管双语教育的好处显而易见,但在很多情况下,它仍然是一个有争议的话题。例如,双语教育一直是美国一个备受争议的政治问题(尽管数十年的研究表明它是有效的);双语家长收到的建议相互矛盾,教师和语言病理学家经常告诉他们应该只用一种语言(通常是学校的语言)与孩子交流。
Yet despite the demonstrated benefits of bilingualism, it remains a controversial topic in many contexts. For instance, bilingual education has been a hotly contested political issue in the US (even though decades of research show it to be effective); bilingual parents receive conflicting advice and are often told by teachers and speech pathologists that they should use only one language (typically the language of the school) with their children.
对于一些家长和教师来说,双语习得的一个令人担忧的方面是,所有双语儿童都会经历一段代码混合期,也就是说,他们在两种语言之间来回转换,似乎没有任何区别。(代码混合通常与代码转换区分开来,代码转换是指双语者为了象征、战略或交流目的而有意使用一种以上的语言。)
One worrisome aspect of bilingual language acquisition for some parents and teachers is the fact that all bilingual children go through a period of code-mixing, that is, they move back and forth between their two languages, seemingly without discrimination. (Code-mixing is generally distinguished from code-switching, which consists of intentional use of more than one language for symbolic, strategic, or communicative purposes by bilinguals.)
然而,代码混合是双语语言发展的正常阶段。它似乎在双语儿童中很普遍,甚至在牙牙学语阶段就很明显。一些人认为,代码混合反映了儿童语法和词汇系统的发展,以及两种语言之间缺乏区分(见下文的“单一系统假设”)。代码混合也可能是儿童词汇量有限的结果(即儿童可能只知道一种语言中某些物品的名称)。最近,儿童语言研究人员将代码混合解释为早期的代码转换,表明即使是非常年幼的儿童也具有根据对话上下文在两种语言之间转换的社交或战略能力。(请参阅框 6.9,了解 Lanza 对挪威语和英语代码混合的研究。)
Code-mixing, however, is a normal phase of bilingual language development. It seems to be universal among bilingual children and is apparent even at the babbling stage. Some have argued that code-mixing reflects children’s developing grammar and lexical system and the lack of differentiation between the two languages (see the “unitary system hypothesis” below). Code-mixing might also be the result of a child’s limited vocabulary (that is, the child may only know the names of some items in one language). More recently, child language researchers have explained code-mixing as early code-switching, demonstrating that even very young children have the social or strategic competence to move between two languages depending on the conversational context. (See Box 6.9 for Lanza’s study on Norwegian and English code-mixing.)
Lanza ( 1992 ) 对居住在挪威奥斯陆的挪威裔美国家庭的两个孩子进行了研究,观察他们的双语使用情况和代码混合情况。他们的母亲是美国人,父亲是挪威人,孩子只能和他们说英语和挪威语,这就遵循了所谓的单语单亲规则。Lanza 发现,孩子们知道何时使用挪威语,何时使用英语,并且还会在适当的情况下混合(或在两种语言之间切换)——也就是说,孩子和母亲说英语,和父亲说挪威语,当全家人在一起时,比如吃饭的时候,两种语言就会混合使用。这表明,孩子们意识到了语言选择和使用的社会背景线索。
Lanza (1992) studied two children from Norwegian-American families living in Oslo, Norway, to observe their bilingual language use and code-mixing. Each had an American mother and a Norwegian father with whom the child was to exclusively speak English and Norwegian, respectively, following what is sometimes known as the one-language-one-parent rule. Lanza found that children knew when to use Norwegian and when to use English, and also mixed (or switched between) the two languages in the appropriate situation – that is, the child used English with the mother, Norwegian with the father, and mixed the two when the family was together such as at meal times. This showed that the children were aware of socio-contextual cues for language choice and use.
事实上,单语单亲规则并不总是得到严格遵守。兰扎发现,一个家庭对这一政策比较松懈,会在两种语言之间来回切换。这种松懈的倾向对孩子的语言发展有影响。特别是,孩子总体上倾向于挪威语,与他应该说英语的母亲交谈时,他讲挪威语多于英语。这一发现可能意味着孩子的双语能力不够均衡,但兰扎指出,孩子也可能对父母的代码混合(或切换)做出了反应。一般来说,两个孩子都倾向于与对单语单亲规则不太严格的父母混合使用两种语言。孩子的混合使用是否是对父母代码切换的反应,还是代表了双语能力不够均衡,目前尚不清楚。然而,很明显,双语输入似乎会促进代码混合,孩子们知道在什么情况下适合进行代码混合(或切换)。
In reality, the one-language-one-parent rule is not always strictly followed. Lanza found that one family in particular was more lax about the policy and would switch back and forth between the two languages. This tendency to be more lax had implications for the child’s language development. In particular, the child tended to prefer Norwegian overall and would speak more Norwegian than English with his mother with whom he was supposed to speak English. This finding could imply that the child was a less than balanced bilingual, but Lanza noted that the child could also have been responding to the parent’s code-mixing (or switching). In general, both children tended to mix the two languages with the parent who was less strict about the one-language-one-parent rule. Whether or not the children’s mixing was a response to the parent’s code-switching or represents less balanced bilingualism is unclear. However, it is clear that bilingual input seems to foster code-mixing, and children are aware of the contexts in which it is appropriate to code-mix (or switch).
社会语言学家和心理语言学家对幼儿的混合语码进行了大量的研究。心理语言学家特别研究了早期的混合语码,以了解大脑中两种语言的性质和组织。双语儿童是否一开始只有一个语法和词汇系统,后来随着孩子学会区分两种语言而变得有区别?还是双语儿童从一开始就有两个语法和词汇系统?前一种情况被称为单一系统假设,而后者被称为独立系统假说。支持单一系统假说的主要证据是,所有幼儿似乎都会经历一段混合两种语言的时期,特别是在词汇层面。独立系统假说的支持者则指出,即使是非常年幼的儿童在进入双词阶段之前也能区分他们的语言,而且往往对对话者的语言很敏感能力。
Young children’s code-mixes have generated substantial research by sociolinguists and psycholinguists. Psycholinguists in particular have examined early code-mixing with an eye to understanding the nature and organization of the two languages in the brain. Does a bilingual child begin with just one grammar and lexical system that later becomes differentiated as the child learns to distinguish between the two languages? Or does a bilingual child have two grammatical and lexical systems from the outset? The former position is known as the unitary system hypothesis, while the latter is referred to as the separate systems hypothesis. The primary evidence supporting the unitary system hypothesis is that all young children seem to go through a period of mixing their two languages, particularly at the lexical level. Supporters of the separate systems hypothesis, in turn, point to the fact that even very young children can differentiate between their languages prior to entering into the two-word phase and are often sensitive to their interlocutors’ language competences.
正如本文所述,双语研究充满争议且复杂。研究结果有时会相互矛盾,部分原因是双语人口非常多样化。双语育儿的形式多种多样,双语可以通过不同的途径实现。例如,在一些家庭中,父母坚持一人一语规则(例如,母亲只说日语对孩子和父亲德语),也称为在其他情况下,父母双方都会进行长时间的代码转换,并在一种语言和另一种语言之间自由转换;还有一些情况下,孩子在家里使用一种语言,在学校或社区使用另一种语言。接触和互动每种语言的量直接影响能力水平。例如,研究人员研究了西班牙语-英语双语幼儿(8 个月至 2 岁半),发现互动接触量与每种语言的主动词汇量之间存在很强的相关性。虽然一些主动词汇似乎只在 20% 的语言接触时间内发展,但孩子还需要更多的时间才能接近熟练掌握两种语言。
As suggested here, research on bilingualism is controversial and complicated. The results of studies are sometimes conflicting, in part because the bilingual population is very diverse. Bilingual child-rearing takes many varied shapes and forms, and bilingualism can be achieved through different routes. For instance, in some homes, parents adhere to the one-person-one-language rule (with, for instance, the mother only speaking Japanese to the child and the father German), also known as Grammont’s Principle; in others, both parents engage in extended code-switching and move freely between one language and another; and in still others, children use one language at home and another in their school or community. The amount of exposure to and interaction in each language directly contributes to competency levels. For instance, researchers studied young Spanish–English incipient bilingual children (aged eight months to two and a half years) and found a strong correlation between the amount of interactive exposure and the size of the active vocabulary in each language. While some active lexicon seems to develop with only 20 percent exposure time to the language, much more is needed for a child to become close to equally proficient in both languages.
研究还表明,儿童对其语言在更广泛的社会背景下的地位很敏感。例如,许多在美国家中说英语以外的语言的父母都努力让孩子学会双语。他们经常发现,一旦孩子开始接受正规教育,英语就会成为他们首选或主导的语言。(请参阅方框 6.10,了解这种趋势如何影响美国的西班牙语等少数民族语言。)
Research has also demonstrated that children are sensitive to the status of their language in the wider societal context. For instance, many parents in the US who speak a language other than English in the home struggle to promote bilingualism among their children. They often find that once children begin formal schooling, English becomes children’s preferred or dominant language. (See Box 6.10 for how this tendency affects minority languages such as Spanish in the US.)
即便对于最大的少数民族语言,比如说西班牙语,保持传统语言也非常困难,因为 12% 的美国人口都使用西班牙语。Rumbaut、Massey 和 Bean ( 2006 ) 研究了南加州大量拉丁裔人口的人口统计数据。他们的研究结果表明,如今抵达南加州的墨西哥移民只能指望他们的曾孙中只有二十分之一的人能说一口流利的西班牙语。他们解释说:“即便在美国最大的西班牙语聚居区,在历史上属于墨西哥的边境地区,西班牙语似乎在第三代美国居民到来时就将自然消亡。”
Maintaining a heritage language can be difficult even for the largest of minority languages such as Spanish, which 12 percent of the US population speaks. Rumbaut, Massey, and Bean (2006) examined demographic data from Southern California’s large Latino population. Their findings suggest that Mexican immigrants arriving in Southern California today can expect only one in twenty of their great-grandchildren to speak fluent Spanish. As they explain, “Even in the nations’ largest Spanish-speaking enclave, within a border region that historically belonged to Mexico, Spanish appears to be well on the way to a natural death by the third generation of US residence.”
虽然墨西哥和中美洲移民后裔中西班牙语的保留率略高于其他群体,但他们仍然遵循了随着时间推移转向英语的通常模式。例如,在父母两人出生在美国(祖父母三人或三人以上出生在国外)的墨西哥裔美国人中,只有 17% 的人能说流利的西班牙语。在祖父母只有一人或两人出生在国外的墨西哥裔美国人中,只有 7% 的人能说流利的西班牙语。在父母和祖父母出生在美国的墨西哥裔美国人中,只有 5% 的人能说流利的西班牙语。正如 Rumbaut等人所观察到的,他们的研究结果清楚地表明英语并没有受到威胁:“受到威胁的反而是移民带到美国的非英语语言的生存”(2006:458-459)。这项研究表明,如果父母想要保留他们的传统语言,他们必须非常努力地对抗有利于整个社会主导语言的单语趋势。
While Spanish maintenance among the descendants of Mexican and Central American immigrants was slightly higher than among other groups, they still followed the usual pattern of switching to English as the years passed. For instance, among Mexican Americans with two US-born parents (and three or more foreign-born grandparents), only 17 percent spoke fluent Spanish. Among those with only one or two foreign-born grandparents, Spanish fluency was only 7 percent. And only 5 percent of Mexican Americans with US-born parents and US-born grandparents spoke Spanish fluently. As Rumbaut et al. observe, their findings illustrate clearly that English is not threatened: “What is endangered instead is the survival of non-English languages that immigrants bring with them to the United States” (2006: 458–459). This study demonstrates that if parents want to maintain their heritage language, they must work very hard to fight against the monolingual trend which favors the larger society’s dominant language.
这些不同的语言学习经历和背景对儿童的语言能力有重大影响。大多数儿童在一种语言上表现更好,而且几乎所有儿童都倾向于将每种语言与特定的环境、技能和活动联系起来。因此,事实上存在相对很少有平衡的双语者,即在两种语言的所有领域都具有相同和母语能力的人。考虑到双语者倾向于将他们的每种语言用于不同的人有不同的功能,例如在家和在工作中。认为唯一“真正的”双语者是完美平衡的双语者的观点是误导性的。研究表明,双语者并不是一个人的“两种单语者”,而是其能力反映了他们特定的学习经历和语言使用模式的个体。
These different language-learning experiences and contexts impact on children’s language competencies in important ways. Most children are stronger in one language, and nearly all children tend to associate each language with particular contexts, skills, and activities. As a result, there are in fact relatively few balanced bilinguals, or individuals who have identical and native competence in all areas of both languages. This is hardly surprising when we consider that bilinguals tend to use each of their languages for different functions, for example, at home versus at work. The notion that the only “true” bilingual is a perfectly balanced bilingual is misleading. Research points to the fact that bilinguals are not “two monolinguals” in one person, but, rather, individuals whose competencies reflect their particular learning experiences and patterns of language use.
现在我们已经介绍了一些有关语言习得的核心发现,我们将讨论一些试图解释儿童如何习得语言的不同理论。为了可信或可行,这些理论必须解释上述儿童语言发展的核心事实,包括:
Now that we have covered some of the central findings concerning language acquisition, we turn to some of the different theories that try to explain how children acquire language. In order to be credible or viable, these theories must account for the central facts of child language development discussed above, including:
这里提出的每一种解释都嵌入在语言学和心理学领域的不同思想流派或范式中。下面我们概述了这些范式的主要原则,并描述了它们如何试图解释上述过程。
Each of the explanations presented here is embedded in different schools of thought or paradigms within the fields of linguistics and psychology. Below we outline the major tenets of each of these paradigms and describe how each attempts to account for the processes described above.
语言习得的早期解释之一源于行为主义,该理论认为语言本质上是一种习惯,一种像其他行为一样的行为,可以通过一般的学习原则掌握。这些原则包括模仿、 强化和惩罚。例如,孩子可能会模仿父母使用鸭子。父母听到孩子的单词后,可能会给予积极的强化,例如“是的,这是一只鸭子!”并微笑,或者,如果孩子没有理解孩子的话语,可能会把目光移开。这样,孩子更像目标的话语会得到奖励(因此往往会重复),而非目标的话语会受到“惩罚”(因此通常会随着时间的推移而消失)。随着孩子的成长,父母对孩子语言的期望会发生变化,他们会改变强化策略。因此,虽然da两岁孩子鸭子翻译但四岁孩子da正如心理学家、行为主义主要支持者之一 BF 斯金纳 (BF Skinner) 所解释的那样,“当儿童的相对无模式的发声经过选择性强化,逐渐形成在特定的言语社区中产生适当后果的形式时,他们就获得了言语行为”( 1959:31)。
One of the early explanations of language acquisition was rooted in behaviorism, a theory that held that language is essentially a habit, a behavior like any other, which is mastered through general learning principles. These principles include imitation, reinforcement, and punishment. For instance, a child might imitate a parent’s use of the word duck. The parent, upon hearing the child’s word, might provide positive reinforcement, such as “Yes, it’s a duck!” and a smile, or, alternatively, might look away if the child’s utterance is not comprehended. In this way, the child’s more target-like utterances are rewarded (and thus tend to be repeated) while the non-target-like utterances are “punished” (and thus generally disappear over time). As parents’ expectations for their child’s language change as the child grows, they alter their reinforcement strategies. Thus, while da might be an acceptable rendering of duck for a two-year-old (and thus would be reinforced), the use of da by a four-year-old might not be deemed appropriate and thus would not be reinforced. Through these general learning mechanisms, the child’s utterances are shaped to fit the standards of his/her particular speech community. As B. F. Skinner, a psychologist and one of the main proponents of behaviorism, explained, “a child acquires verbal behavior when relatively unpatterned vocalizations, selectively reinforced, gradually assume forms which produce appropriate consequences in a given verbal community” (1959: 31).
从这个非常简单的例子可以看出,行为主义者倾向于关注可观察的行为,而不是内在或先天的过程。因此,他们认为孩子本质上是“感兴趣的旁观者”,没有特殊的能力或先天的机制对语言习得过程产生影响。虽然这种方法具有一定的常识吸引力,但行为主义不再是儿童语言研究中的主导研究范式。它的衰落始于诺姆·乔姆斯基对斯金纳的《 言语行为》一书的严厉评论。这篇评论预示着“认知革命”的开始,以及一种更加天生的语言习得方法,我们将转向下一个。
As can be seen from this very simple example, behaviorists tend to focus on observable behaviors rather than internal or innate processes. Accordingly, they assume that children are essentially “interested bystanders,” bringing no special abilities or innate mechanisms to bear on the language acquisition process. While this approach has a certain commonsense appeal, behaviorism is no longer the dominant research paradigm in the study of child language. Its downfall began with Noam Chomsky’s scathing review of Skinner’s book, Verbal Behavior. This review heralded the beginning of the “cognitive revolution” and a more innatist approach to language acquisition, to which we turn next.
与行为主义者相反,本土主义者认为语言不是一般学习机制的结果,而是一种天生的能力。这种特殊能力仅限于人类,与任何类型的动物交流都有重要区别。本土主义者的论点基于几个观察结果。首先,本土主义者指出,所有儿童,除非存在严重的认知或身体限制,都可以轻松快速地掌握语言。大多数成年人通常要花几十年的时间才能掌握复杂的第二语言或外语,而本土主义者则指出,儿童只需短短几年就能接近掌握母语,无需指导或任何明显的努力。此外,本土主义者指出,上面讨论的许多数据表明,所有儿童,无论他们学习的语言或他们从照顾者那里得到的输入的数量或质量如何,都以相同的速度和通过相同的发展阶段来习得母语。如果如行为主义者所言,语言习得主要依赖于父母的强化策略,那么为什么我们会看到如此惊人的一致性?
In contrast to behaviorists, nativists hold that language is not the result of general learning mechanisms, but rather is an innate capacity. This special capacity is limited to humans and differs in important ways from any type of animal communication. Nativists rest their argument on several observations. First, nativists point out that all children, barring severe cognitive or physical limitations, acquire language easily and rapidly. Whereas most adults typically struggle for decades to master the complexities of a second or foreign language, nativists note that children reach near mastery of their native tongue in just a few short years, without instruction or any apparent effort. Furthermore, nativists point out that much of the data discussed above shows that all children, regardless of the language they are learning or the quantity or quality of input they receive from their caregivers, acquire their mother tongue at the same rate and by progressing through the same developmental stages. If, as the behaviorists argued, language acquisition was critically dependent on parental reinforcement strategies, why then do we see such striking uniformity?
其次,本土主义者认为,幼儿听到的成人语言是一个糟糕的模型——例如,充满了不完整的句子、错误的开头和口误。然而,儿童接受这种零碎和“退化”的输入,能够构建复杂的语法——比他们从强化或一般学习机制中学到的要复杂得多。(见方框 6.11,在一个不寻常的背景下扩展了这一论点。)单靠输入不足以支持儿童的语言学习的观点被称为 刺激贫困论。
Secondly, nativists have argued that the adult speech that young children hear is a poor model – filled, for instance, with incomplete sentences, false starts, and slips of the tongue. Nevertheless, children take this fragmentary and “degenerate” input and are able to construct a complex grammar – far more complex than they could have ever learned from reinforcement or general learning mechanisms. (See Box 6.11 for an extension of this argument in an unusual context.) The point that input alone is inadequate to support children’s language learning has been referred to as the poverty-of-the-stimulus argument.
洋泾浜语,一种简化语言,没有母语人士,但用于(有限的)群体间接触的背景下,如贸易,几十年来,语言学家一直在研究皮钦语。特别是,语言学家们对皮钦语如何发展成为克里奥尔语很感兴趣——克里奥尔语是成熟且语法复杂的语言,也是使用者的母语。语言学家认为,皮钦语父母的孩子能够吸收他们听到的零碎信息,对其进行阐述,并创造出一种语法复杂、词汇丰富的语言——克里奥尔语。通常,克里奥尔语化过程需要很多年;然而,在 20 世纪 80 年代中期,语言学家们目睹了尼加拉瓜手语 (NSL) 在尼加拉瓜聋哑儿童中迅速兴起。
Pidgins, simplified languages that have no native speakers but are used in contexts of (limited) inter-group contact such as trade, have been studied by linguists for decades. In particular, linguists have been interested in how pidgins develop into creoles – that is, full-blown, grammatically complex languages that are the mother tongues of their speakers. Linguists have argued that children of pidgin-speaking parents can take the fragmentary input they hear, elaborate upon it, and create a language – a creole – with a complex grammar and a rich vocabulary. Typically, this process of creolization takes many years; however, in the mid 1980s linguists witnessed the very quick emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) among young deaf children in Nicaragua.
1970 年之前,尼加拉瓜没有针对聋哑人的正规教育体系。聋哑儿童被隔离在家中,很少与他人接触,因为耳聋是一种严重的耻辱。这些孩子的父母通常不懂西班牙语,也不懂任何手语,因此他们发展出了“家乡手势”——一种简单、独特的与听力正常的亲属交流的系统。然而,在 20 世纪 70 年代末,聋哑学校终于建立起来,聋哑儿童首次与其他聋哑儿童见面并成为朋友。不过,学校并没有教他们手语:官方政策是教他们读唇语和用手指拼写西班牙语单词。然而,这些孩子们发展了自己的交流系统——一种洋泾浜手语,它融合了家乡手势的元素,并包含将这些手势串联起来的基本语法规则。孩子们没有从老师那里学到语法,因为老师不懂任何手语;他们也不是从不会手语的父母或书本上学到的。
Prior to 1970, there was no formal education system in Nicaragua for the deaf. Deaf children were sequestered at home and had little contact with others, as deafness was highly stigmatized. These children, whose parents were often illiterate in Spanish and did not know any sign language, developed “home signs” – simple, idiosyncratic systems for communicating with their hearing relatives. In the late 1970s, however, schools for the deaf were finally established and, for the first time, deaf children met and befriended other deaf children. They were not taught sign language at the school, though: the official policy was to teach them to lipread and fingerspell Spanish words. The children, however, developed their own system of communication – a kind of pidgin sign language that incorporated elements of the home signs and contained a rudimentary grammar of rules for stringing those signs together. The children did not learn the grammar from their teachers, as the teachers did not know any sign languages; nor had they learned it from their nonsigning parents or from books.
20 世纪 80 年代,手语专家前往尼加拉瓜研究儿童。他们发现,年龄较大的手语使用者实际上不如年龄较小的手语使用者(即入学较晚、学习时间较短的儿童)流利(使用不太复杂的手势,手势更慢或更犹豫)。例如,年龄较大的儿童同时用手势表示动作事件的方式和路径,而年龄较小、更流利的儿童则按顺序用手势表示方式和路径。因此,随着年龄较小的儿童在 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代学习该语言,这种分段和顺序结构很快成为传达动作事件的首选方式。换句话说,在异常短的时间内,NSL 已经发展成为一个完整而复杂的系统,具有语言标志性的充满意义的组合系统。
Sign language experts visited Nicaragua in the 1980s to study the children. They found that the older signers were actually less fluent (used less complex signs, signed more slowly or hesitantly) than the younger signers – those children who had entered the school at a later date and learned more recently. For instance, older children signed for manner and path of motion events simultaneously while younger, more fluent children signed manner and path sequentially. Thus, as the younger children learned the language in the 1980s and 1990s, this type of segmented and sequenced construction very quickly became the preferred way of communicating motion events. In other words, in an unusually short period of time, NSL had developed into a full and complex system, complete with the meaning-packed combinatorial systems that are the hallmark of language.
第三,本土主义者认为,儿童很少会收到关于其话语语法性的具体反馈(有时被称为负面证据),因为成年人通常关注的是儿童话语的内容,而不是其语言准确性。此外,在少数情况下,当成年人确实向孩子提供反馈或明确的语言指导时,孩子们基本上对此毫不在意。
Thirdly, nativists contend that children rarely receive specific feedback, sometimes referred to as negative evidence, on the grammaticality of their utterances, as adults typically focus on the content of a child’s utterance rather than its linguistic accuracy. Furthermore, on those rare occasions when adults do provide feedback or explicit language instruction to their children, the children are by and large oblivious to it.
最后,本土主义者认为儿童会创造或生成基于规则的系统。如果儿童真的依靠模仿和强化来学习母语,那么为什么他们会说出“他去了商店”和“我们今天看见老鼠了”这样的话语呢?据推测,成年人永远不会说出这样的句子。本土主义者认为,这些过度规则化错误证明儿童正在创造语言、测试有关语言的假设,并且总体上正在习得语言 规则。
Finally, nativists assert that children create or generate a rule-based system. If children were truly relying upon imitation and reinforcement to learn their native tongue, why then, would they produce such utterances as He goed to the store and We saw mouses today? Presumably, such sentences never would have been uttered by an adult. Nativists argue that these overregularization errors are evidence that the child is in the process of creating language, testing hypotheses about language, and, in general, acquiring the rules of the language.
简而言之,本土主义者认为,语言习得过程的一致性的唯一可能解释是儿童所拥有的语言知识的复杂性尽管他们获得的反馈很少,而且语言本身具有生成性,但语言在如此小的年龄仍然能够发挥作用,这是因为语言必须是与生俱来的。更具体地说,语言被认为是一种物种特有的或人类独有的认知能力,是先天语言习得机制(有时称为“LAD”)的结果。虽然 LAD 的位置和内容仍是一个有争议的话题(神经学家已经确定了大脑中负责感知、理解和产生语言的多个区域),但 LAD 据说可以让孩子快速、毫不费力地、无需专门输入地关注语言并发展出适当的语法。
In short, nativists argue that the only possible explanation for the uniformity of the language acquisition process, the complexity of the linguistic knowledge children possess at such young ages despite the scarcity of the feedback they receive, and the generative nature of language itself – is that language must be innate. More specifically, language is claimed to be a species-specific or uniquely human cognitive capacity which is the result of an innate language acquisition device (sometimes referred to as “the LAD”). Although the location and content of the LAD remains a topic of debate (neurologists have identified multiple areas of the brain responsible for the perception, comprehension, and production of language), the LAD is supposedly what allows children to attend to language and develop an appropriate grammar quickly, without effort, and with no specialized input.
然而,一些研究人员认为,这个过程有一个时间限制,也称为关键期或敏感期,有证据表明,在这一时期结束后(通常在青春期左右),完全掌握第一语言或第二语言会变得困难,甚至不可能。本土主义者经常指出,像 Genie 这样的野孩子就是这种关键时期的证据。Genie 从很小的时候就在语言(以及情感和身体)匮乏的环境中长大,从未获得与年龄相适应的第一语言能力。
There is, however, according to some researchers, a time limit, also known as a critical or sensitive period, for this process to take place, and evidence suggests that after this period has ended (typically around puberty), complete acquisition of a first or second language becomes difficult, if not impossible. Nativists often point to feral children such as Genie as evidence of such a critical period. Genie was raised from a very young age in a state of linguistic (as well as emotional and physical) deprivation and never gained age-appropriate competence in her first language.
本土主义的语言学习方法一直是语言学领域(及其他领域)的一支主要力量。然而,近年来,它受到来自多个方向的越来越多的攻击和批评,既有理论方面的,也有经验方面的。一种攻击来自联结主义的支持者;另一种更为经验性的攻击来自社会互动论。
The nativist approach to language learning has been a major force within the field of linguistics (and beyond). However, in recent years it has come under increasing attack and criticism from several directions on both theoretical and empirical grounds. One line of attack has come from proponents of connectionism; another, more empirical attack comes from proponents of social interactionism.
本土主义者认为,儿童所接受的语言输入不够丰富,不足以支持提取复杂的语言概括;因此,儿童必须天生就具备语言规则知识,以指导语言习得过程。联结主义者对这一论点提出质疑。具体来说,他们认为一般的学习机制(例如对输入中分布模式的敏感性)足以满足语言习得的至少某些方面,包括语法。
Nativists argue that the linguistic input children receive is not rich enough to support the extraction of complex linguistic generalizations; therefore, children must by necessity be endowed with an innate knowledge of linguistic rules that guide the language acquisition process. Connectionists challenge this argument. Specifically, they contend that general learning mechanisms – such as sensitivity to distributional patterns in the input – are sufficient for at least some aspects of language acquisition, including syntax.
这种方法也被称为“信息处理方法”或 并行分布式处理 (PDP)方法,通常认为处理是由节点(大致类似于神经元)进行的,这些节点通过强度不同的路径连接到网络中的其他节点。虽然这些网络的确切架构超出了本章的范围,但这些网络的主要特征是它们不包含符号规则的知识。相反,它们能够根据在输入中检测到的规律进行关联。
This approach, also variously known as the “information processing approach” or a parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach, generally holds that processing is carried out by nodes (roughly analogous to neurons) that are connected to other nodes in a network by pathways that vary in their strength. While the exact architecture of these networks is beyond the scope of this chapter, the key characteristic of these networks is that they do not contain knowledge of symbolic rules. Rather, they have the ability to make associations based on regularities they detect in the input.
例如,本土主义者认为,儿童对常规过去时结尾的过度概括(如Lucas goed或Isaac held the baby ducks)证明儿童掌握了抽象规则,并(最初,有点过于热心地)将其应用于动词,而联结主义者则认为,没有必要假设儿童的语言知识是基于任何天生的规则。相反,他们认为儿童可以通过基于接触许多例子的归纳过程来学习语言的规律。
For example, whereas nativists have argued that children’s overgeneralization of the regular past-tense ending (such as Lucas goed or Isaac holded the baby ducks) is evidence that children have knowledge of an abstract rule which they apply (initially, a bit overzealously) to verbs, connectionists argue that it is not necessary to assume that children’s linguistic knowledge is based on any innate rules. Rather, they argue that children can learn the regularities of the language through an inductive process based on exposure to many examples.
为了支持这些主张,联结主义者创建了计算机模型(也称为神经网络)。这些模型通常被输入语言输入(例如,一定数量的动词及其过去时态),然后被要求产生新形式的输出(例如,生成WALK或SING的过去时态)。例如,Rumelhart 和 McClelland ( 1986 ) 报告称,他们的神经网络学会了为常规(例如WALK)和不规则(例如SING)动词生成正确的过去时。这些网络不包含语言规则的先验知识,而是在接触了许多例子后表现出类似规则的行为。
To support these claims, connectionists have created computer models (also called neural networks). These models are typically fed linguistic input (for example, a certain number of verbs and their past tenses) and then asked to produce output for a novel form (e.g. generate the past tense of WALK or SING). Rumelhart and McClelland (1986), for example, reported that their neural network learned to produce the correct past tense for both regular (e.g. WALK) and irregular (e.g. SING) verbs. These networks contained no a priori knowledge of linguistic rules, but rather exhibited rule-like behavior after having been exposed to many examples.
联结主义模型受到批评,因为它只涉及语言习得的一小部分(通常是句法)和任务真实性(即网络输入的条件与儿童接触语言的条件不同)。然而,联结主义模型的日益复杂化,至少会促使语言学家重新考虑本土主义方法语言习得。
Connectionist models have been criticized for, among other things, only addressing a small aspect of language acquisition (typically syntax) and for task veridicality (i.e. the conditions in which networks are fed input differ from those in which children are exposed to language). However, the increasing sophistication of connectionist models will, if nothing else, motivate linguists to reconsider the nativist approach to language acquisition.
与本土主义者(强调先天语言知识的重要性)和联结主义者(强调一般学习机制的作用)相反,社会互动主义者指出了儿童与照顾者之间的互动在语言习得过程中的重要性。尽管社会互动主义者通常不否认某种类型的 LAD 的存在,但他们倾向于将其重要性最小化,而强调儿童与照顾者之间的互动在语言习得过程中的作用。LASS(语言习得支持系统)解释儿童语言习得。
In contrast to the nativists (who emphasize the importance of innate linguistic knowledge) and the connectionists (who stress the role of general learning mechanisms), social interactionists point to the importance of child–caregiver interactions in the language acquisition process. Although social interactionists generally do not deny the existence of some type of LAD, they tend to minimize its importance and instead stress the role of the LASS (language acquisition support system) in explaining child language acquisition.
社会互动学家专注于这些互动中使用的语言的特点,特别是儿童导向性言语(CDS,也称为母语或儿语)。看护者在与孩子互动时倾向于使用一种特殊的言语形式 - 包括音调较高、语调夸张的简短简单句,以及关注孩子周围环境中的物体和事件的句子。看护者的言语中可能还会更多地使用小词(例如小狗或小猫),以及重复和模仿。此外,幼儿的看护者也可能使用改写 - 对孩子最初不合语法的话语进行更有针对性的重新表述 - 以帮助孩子掌握更复杂的语言形式。这种言语类型虽然在形状和形式上各不相同,并且并非在所有言语社区中都以相同的方式使用,但人们相信它有助于吸引孩子对有问题的形式的注意力,并让孩子积极参与对话。
Social interactionists have focused on the characteristics of the language used within these interactions, and, in particular, on child-directed speech (CDS, also known as motherese or baby talk). Caregivers, when interacting with children, tend to use a special form of speech – including short, simple sentences with higher pitch and exaggerated intonation, as well as sentences focused on the objects and events in the child’s immediate environment. Caregiver speech may also include increased use of diminutives (e.g. doggie or kittie), as well as repetition and imitation. In addition, caregivers of young children may also use recasts – more target-like reformulations of the child’s original ungrammatical utterance – to help the child master more complex language forms. This type of speech, while varying in shape and form and not used in all speech communities in the same way, is believed to help attract the child’s attention to problematic forms and to actively involve him/her in the conversation.
对于社会互动论者来说,LASS 的重要组成部分是孩子与照顾者在玩耍、喂食和洗澡时建立的日常接触和情感纽带。甚至在他们能够说话之前,孩子就可以在这些互动中与照顾者互动(例如,通过眼神凝视和微笑)。通过这些互动和仪式化的语言使用模式(例如躲猫猫和宝宝在哪里?),孩子们逐渐学会了轮流说话,并意识到语言的交流性质。孩子们开始识别在这些互动中产生的语言模式,并最终能够自己产生这些模式。随着孩子们孩子在表达这些模式时变得更加熟练,他们的照料者反过来也会被促使使用更复杂的语言形式,促进更成熟和更复杂的互动。照料者以这种方式支持或支撑孩子正在形成的语言系统。当然,这种父母支持的性质和为孩子提供的支撑类型因文化而异(见方框 6.7)。
For social interactionists, important parts of the LASS are the daily contacts and emotional bonds a child has with his/her caregivers while being played with, fed, and bathed. Even before they are capable of producing speech, children can interact with their caregivers in these interactions (for example, through eye gaze and smiles). Through these interactions and ritualized patterns of language use (such as peekaboo and Where’s baby?), children gradually learn about turn-taking and become aware of the communicative nature of language. Children begin to recognize the language patterns that are produced within these interactions and are eventually able to produce them on their own. As children become more adept at communicating these patterns, their caregivers in turn are prompted to use more complex language forms, facilitating more mature and sophisticated interactions. In this way, the caregiver supports, or scaffolds, the child’s emerging linguistic system. Of course, the nature of this parental support and the types of scaffolding provided to children vary across cultures (see Box 6.7).
社会互动论范式的研究人员试图确定这些互动与儿童语言发展之间的关系。他们认为,以儿童为导向的言语似乎特别有利于促进语言学习(见框 6.12)。社会互动论者往往不同意本土论者关于儿童输入性质的观点,特别是对刺激贫乏论提出异议。他们特别指出,虽然父母不会以任何正式方式“教授语法”,但儿童每次说话时都会收到有关其语言有效性的多种反馈,这种有效性与他们话语的语法正确性有关。此外,虽然本土论者倾向于关注句法和形态的习得,但专注于词汇发展等其他领域的研究人员记录了儿童接受语言输入的频率(以每小时单词数计算),并表明儿童听到的语言与他们产生的语言之间存在明确的关系。
Researchers working within the social interactionist paradigm have sought to determine the relationship between these interactions and children’s language development. They argue that child-directed speech seems to be especially geared to facilitate language learning (see Box 6.12). Social interactionists tend to disagree with nativists about the nature of children’s input and specifically take issue with the poverty-of-stimulus argument. In particular, they point to the fact that while parents do not “teach grammar” in any formal way, children receive many types of feedback about the effectiveness of their language every time they speak, and this effectiveness is related to the grammatical correctness of their utterances. Furthermore, while nativists have tended to focus on the acquisition of syntax and morphology, researchers who have focused on other areas, such as vocabulary development, have documented the frequency of the language input that children receive (in terms of words per hour) and shown a clear relationship between the language which children hear and the language which they produce.
人们普遍认为,对婴儿和动物说的话是特殊且相似的;可能会有更高的音调、夸张的语调和“特殊”的词语(例如baby-waby、putty tat)。2002 年,第一项实际测试这种看法的研究比较了对动物和婴儿说的话。在这项研究中,研究人员比较了 12 位母亲(均为澳大利亚英语母语人士)与他们六个月大的婴儿以及宠物(猫或狗)的讲话,同时使用玩具羊、鞋子和玩具鲨鱼作为道具进行对话。从三个维度测量了母亲的讲话:(1)音调、(2)情感(声音中积极情绪的程度)和(3)元音过度发音(通过拉长元音来过分强调元音)。研究人员发现,与对成人说话相比,母亲在对婴儿和宠物说话时音调更高,情感更浓。此外,他们还发现,母亲在与婴儿说话时使用元音过度发音的次数明显多于与宠物或其他成年人说话时。Burnham等人得出结论,更多地使用元音过度发音可以解释为一种说教:母亲对婴儿的语言潜力很敏感,因此会改变自己的语言来反映这一点。正如研究人员所解释的那样,“说话者对听众很敏感,既包括听觉偏好和情感需求,也包括潜在的语言能力。”
Speech addressed to babies and to animals is commonly perceived as special and similar; there may be higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, and “special” words (e.g. baby-waby, putty tat). The first research to actually test this perception, in 2002, compared speech addressed to animals and to infants. In this study, the researchers compared the speech of twelve mothers (all native speakers of Australian English) to their six-month-old infants and to their pets (cats or dogs) while engaged in a conversation using a toy sheep, a shoe, and a toy shark as props. The mothers’ speech was measured along three dimensions: (1) pitch, (2) affect (the amount of positive emotion in the voice), and (3) vowel hyperarticulation (overemphasizing the vowel by lengthening it). The researchers found that the mothers used a higher pitch and more affect while speaking to infants and pets than to adults. In addition, they found that the mothers used significantly more vowel hyperarticulation with their infants than with either their pets or other adults. Burnham et al. concluded that the greater use of vowel hyperarticulation could be interpreted as didactic: the mothers were sensitive to their infants’ linguistic potential and thus altered their language to reflect this. As the researchers explained, “speakers are sensitive to their audience, both in regard to acoustic preferences and emotional needs, and in terms of potential linguistic ability.”
然而,与本章迄今为止讨论的其他方法一样,社会互动主义也受到了不少批评,包括对儿童如何学习语言结构的关注不够。尽管如此,这种方法强调语言学习的社会方面,可能对更完整的第一语言习得理论做出重要贡献。
However, as with the other approaches discussed so far in this chapter, social interactionism has also had its fair share of criticism, including an inadequate focus on how children learn the structure of the language. Nevertheless, this approach, with its emphasis on the social aspect of language learning, may have important contributions to make to a more complete theory of first language acquisition.
正如本章开头所述,研究儿童语言习得的关键不仅在于我们对儿童如何习得语言的理解,还在于我们对人类思维及其运作方式的理解。在心理学(以及许多其他领域)中,关于先天和后天在人类发展中的相对重要性一直存在着长期的争论,自然主义者强调生物和遗传编程的重要性,而后天主义者则指出环境的作用。在语言习得理论方面,先天主义者当然站在“先天”一边。行为主义者则属于这场争论中“后天”的另一端。尽管越来越多的人同意先天和后天都很重要,但科学家们对两者的相对重要性意见不一。
As noted at the outset of this chapter, what is at stake in the study of child language acquisition is not only our grasp of how children acquire language, but also our understanding of the human mind and how it works. Within psychology (and many other fields), there has been a very long-standing debate concerning the relative importance of nature and nurture in human development, with the naturists stressing the importance of biological and genetic programming and the nurturists pointing to the role of the environment. In terms of language acquisition theory, the nativists, of course, sit on the “nature” side. The behaviorists belong on the far end of the “nurture” side of this debate. While there is growing agreement that both nature and nurture are critical, scientists disagree on the relative importance of each.
除了为先天与后天的争论提供信息之外,语言习得研究还提出了许多关于大脑组织和功能细节的重要而有趣的问题。大脑中是否有一个区域专门用于习得语言?如果有,这将支持人类思维的模块化观点。其他物种可以学习语言吗?如果是这样,这将破坏人类思维独一无二的许多说法。其他问题,例如语言习得是否有一个关键时期,输入和反馈在语言习得过程中起多大作用,以及语言习得的跨文化差异,都对我们理解人类思维有着重要影响。
In addition to informing the debate on nature vs. nurture, the study of language acquisition raises many important and interesting questions about the specifics of brain organization and function. Is there a region of the brain which is dedicated to the task of acquiring language? If so, this would support a modular view of the human mind. Can other species learn language? If so, this would undermine many claims that the human mind is unique. Other questions, such as whether there is a critical period for language acquisition, how large a role input and feedback play in the language acquisition process, and crosscultural differences in language acquisition, all have implications for our understanding of the human mind.
最后,儿童语言习得研究与我们对语言作为一个系统的理解有关。我们如何理解和解释儿童语言习得与研究人员对语言的概念交织在一起。例如,将语言视为生成无数句子的抽象规则系统的研究人员发现,儿童正在发展规则系统。反过来,将语言概念化的研究人员发现,儿童正在发展规则系统。语言是一种更广泛的交流系统,因文化而异,因此,语言研究往往侧重于儿童掌握适合其语言社区的语用能力。这样,儿童语言习得研究与更普遍的语言研究方法密切相关。
Finally, the study of child language acquisition is related to our understanding of language as a system. How we understand and explain child language acquisition is interwoven with researchers’ conceptions of language. For instance, researchers who view language as a system of abstract rules for generating an infinite number of sentences find evidence that children are developing rule-systems. In turn, researchers who conceptualize language as a broader communicative system which varies culturally tend to focus, for instance, on children’s mastery of pragmatic competence appropriate to their speech community. In this way, the study of child language acquisition is intimately connected with different approaches to the study of language more generally.
研究儿童如何习得语言的方法有很多,包括日记研究、实验和观察方法。所有这些方法都帮助研究人员更好地了解儿童在掌握母语的过程中所经历的阶段。其中许多阶段(例如单词和双词阶段)似乎是普遍存在的;然而,任何第一语言习得理论都需要考虑到跨语言和跨文化的重要差异。虽然迄今为止还没有一个完整的理论成功地处理了语言习得的所有方面,但本土主义、行为主义、联结主义和社会互动主义理论都为我们理解儿童语言发展提供了重要的见解。
There are many methods for studying how children acquire languages – including diary studies, experiments, and observational methods. All of these have helped researchers gain a better understanding of the stages that children pass through on their way to mastering their native language. Many of these stages – such as the one-word and two-word stages – appear to be universal; however, there are important crosslinguistic and crosscultural variations that need to be taken into account in any theory of first language acquisition. Although to date no complete theory has successfully dealt with all aspects of language acquisition, the theories of nativism, behaviorism, connectionism, and social interactionism each have important insights to contribute to our understanding of children’s language development.
母语习得研究是一个充满活力的领域,有许多尚未解答的、令人兴奋的问题等待进一步研究。哪种理论(或哪种理论组合)最能解释儿童的语言发展?语言习得中存在多少跨语言和跨文化差异?如何才能更全面地回答这些问题,以帮助我们理解人类的思维?虽然这些问题还远未得到解答,但未来的研究将使我们更接近解决这个难题。
The study of first language acquisition is a dynamic field with many unanswered and exciting questions awaiting further research. Which theory (or which combination of theories) best accounts for children’s development of language? How much crosslinguistic and crosscultural variation exists in language acquisition? How can arriving at more complete answers to these questions inform our understanding of the human mind? Although these questions are far from being answered, future research will bring us closer to solving the puzzle.
检查以下一位父亲和他两岁的儿子 Trevor 在玩积木时的对话。孩子话语的 MLU 是多少?(有关如何计算的详细信息, 请参阅方框 6.5 。)根据布朗的说法,这个孩子处于哪个发展阶段?
Examine the following conversation between a father and his two-year-old son, Trevor, while they are playing with blocks. What is the MLU of the child’s utterances? (Refer to Box 6.5 for details on how to compute this.) According to Brown, at what stage of development is this child?
父亲:你在干什么?孩子:嗨。父亲:你在干什么?孩子:我们来玩这个吧。孩子:我们一起玩这个吧。父亲:一起玩这个吗?小孩:我们一起玩吧。父亲:好的。孩子:骑上你吧。孩子:噢。(拟声词)孩子:落入水中。父亲:要降落到水面上吗?孩子:是的。父亲:就像外面那些一样?孩子:是的。父亲:噢,现在就来了一个。父亲:哦。父亲:他来了。父亲:他在做什么?孩子:嗯,他飞走了。孩子:婴儿飞机。(来源:CHILDES 数据库,Demetras1:tre01.cha。完整对话可参阅http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/Eng-USA/)
FATHER: whatcha doing munch?CHILD: hi.FATHER: whatcha doing?CHILD: let’s play dis.CHILD: let’s play dis together.FATHER: play this together?CHILD: let’s play together.FATHER: okay.CHILD: ride you up.CHILD: ooom. (onomatopoeia)CHILD: land in duh water.FATHER: gonna land on the water?CHILD: yeah.FATHER: like the ones out there?CHILD: yep.FATHER: oh, here comes one right now.FATHER: o:h.FATHER: here he comes.FATHER: what’s he doing?CHILD: um he’s flying away.CHILD: babye airplane.(Source: CHILDES database, Demetras1:tre01.cha. Full conversation available http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/Eng-USA/)
通过下面的对话(一位母亲和她 2 岁的儿子 Jimmy 之间的对话)和练习 1 中提供的对话,你注意到父母对孩子的回应策略是什么?你如何描述他们的互动策略或风格?这对语言习得有何意义?
Using both the conversation below (between a mother and her 2;2 son, Jimmy) and the conversation provided in Exercise 1, what do you notice about the parents’ responding strategies to their children? How would you describe their interactional strategies or styles? What significance might this have for language acquisition?
儿童:奶酪拉达(家庭特定形式)母亲:奶酪拉达(特定家庭形式)母亲:还有什么?孩子:一个巫师。妈妈:米饭!孩子:我得到[//]我(想)得到奶酪&la母亲:他知道你想要一份奶酪玉米卷饼……母亲:这是什么?母亲:那是螺栓吗?孩子:嗯嗯。母亲:是的。孩子:这不能……母亲:那好,试一试。母亲:就在那儿!妈妈:那个扳手是什么颜色的?孩子: xxx。孩子: &o橙子。母亲:橙色。母亲:是的。妈妈:那是你最喜欢的颜色吗?孩子:我喜欢黑色的豆子。妈妈:你喜欢黑色软糖吗?母亲:这就是艾斯叔叔喜欢的,不是吗?(来源:CHILDES数据库)
CHILD: cheese lada (family-specific form)MOTHER: cheese lada (family-specific form)MOTHER: and what else?CHILD: an wice.MOTHER: rice!CHILD: I get [//] I (w)ann(a) get cheese &laMOTHER: he knows you want a cheese enchilada…MOTHER: what is this?MOTHER: is that a bolt?CHILD: uh huh.MOTHER: yeah.CHILD: dis can …MOTHER: well try it.MOTHER: there!MOTHER: what color is that wrench?CHILD: xxx.CHILD: &o orange.MOTHER: orange.MOTHER: yeah.MOTHER: is that your favorite color?CHILD: I like black chelly beans.MOTHER: you like black jelly beans?MOTHER: that’s what Uncle Ace likes, isn’t it?(Source: CHILDES database)
在下表中,看看孩子们对词语及其指称物的使用情况,即这些词语用来指代的物体。孩子们在使用这些词语时似乎依赖于物体或事件的哪些特征或特性?
In the table below, look at the children’s uses of words and their referents, that is, the objects which those words are used to refer to. What features or characteristics of the objects or events do the children appear to be relying on in their uses of these words?
单词 參考文獻 (一个) 椅子 椅子、沙发、长凳、靠窗座位、汽车座椅、床 (二) 电脑 笔记本电脑、通常放置电脑的桌子(即使没有电脑) (三) 叶子 一片或多片树叶、草、苔藓、绿地毯、绿色毛巾、菠菜、生菜、鳄梨
Word Referents (a) chair chair, sofa, bench, window seat, car seat, bed (b) computer laptop computer, desk where computer usually sits (even if computer is not there) (c) leaf leaf or leaves, grass, moss, green carpet, green towel, spinach, lettuce, avocado
以下是儿童对常见英语名词的发音示例。它们与标准成人发音有何不同?是否有任何声音或声音序列看起来特别困难?儿童发音中有哪些明显的模式?
The following are examples of children’s pronunciations of common English nouns. How do they differ from the standard adult pronunciation? Are there any sounds or sound sequences that seem to be particularly difficult? What patterns are evident in the children’s pronunciations?
单词 发音 单词 发音 瓶子 [爸爸] 钥匙 [錯] 蝴蝶 [b ʌ fai] 鸭子 [克ʌ克] 浴缸 [b ʌ b] 水 [哇哇] 婴儿 [比比] 停止 [ tɔp ] 树 [錯] 毯子 [bæki] 糖果 [がきな] 狗 [g ɔ gi] 香蕉 [沒有] 这 [ dɪs ]
Word Pronunciation Word Pronunciation bottle [baba] key [ti] butterfly [bʌfai] duck [gʌk] tub [bʌb] water [wawa] baby [bibi] stop [tɔp] tree [ti] blanket [bæki] candy [kæki] doggie [gɔgi] banana [nænə] this [dɪs]
语言根植于大脑的生物学。因此,了解语言的生物学对于理解语言本身至关重要。语言生物学基础的绝大多数研究都集中在大脑解剖学上,主要试图确定大脑的哪些部分是语言功能的基础,例如词汇或语法能力。然而,语言的生物学也可以在许多其他层面上进行研究,从细胞到分子再到基因。此外,对所有这些生物学方面的研究必须与心理语言学研究相补充和整合,这些研究涉及语言在我们说话和理解时的实际使用方式;语言习得研究;以及语言结构的理论语言学研究。总之,这些研究为理解语言的生物认知或神经认知基础的最终目标提供了见解。这反过来最终应该会揭示语言使用的更高层次方面,例如话语、历史变迁、方言变化、阅读和写作,以及语言教学和语言计算机模型等重要应用。
Language is rooted in the biology of the brain. Therefore understanding the biology of language is critical to understanding language itself. The vast majority of research on the biological bases of language has focused on brain anatomy, mainly attempting to identify which parts of the brain underlie which language functions, such as lexical or grammatical abilities. However, the biology of language can also be investigated at many other levels, from cells to molecules to genes. Moreover, the study of all these aspects of biology must be complemented by and integrated with psycholinguistic studies of how language is actually used as we speak and understand; with investigations of language acquisition; and with the theoretical linguistic examination of the architecture of language. Taken together, these provide an insight into the ultimate goal of understanding the biocognitive or neurocognitive bases of language. This in turn should eventually shed light on higher-level aspects of language use, such as discourse, historical change, dialect variation, and reading and writing, as well as important applications like language teaching and computer models of language.
本章结构如下:
This chapter is organized as follows:
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
在探究大脑语言的生物学基础之前,我们必须首先了解大脑的生物学。因此,让我们简要了解一下大脑解剖结构以及大脑功能的细胞和分子基础。
Before asking questions about the biological bases of language in the brain, we must first understand the biology of the brain. So let’s take a brief tour of brain anatomy, and of the cellular and molecular substrates of brain function.
大脑是脑部最大的部分,也是认知最重要的部分,是大脑(图 7.1 )。大脑由两个半球组成,它们或多或少互为镜像。每个半球可分为四个叶:额叶、颞叶、顶叶和枕叶(图 7.1)。此外,每个半球包含多个较小的解剖结构,称为脑回(单数:回)和脑沟(单数:沟)。脑回是大脑盘旋表面上的脊和高原,脑沟是它们之间的山谷和峡谷(图 7.2)。不同人脑在这些结构的拓扑结构上具有足够的一致性,因此可以为这些结构赋予特定的名称,例如 额下回或颞上沟。虽然这些术语乍一看可能很奇怪,但记住它们很重要,因为它们为我们提供了一种明确的方式来指代这些结构,就像地理术语允许人们明确地指代地球表面的不同区域一样。然而,必须强调的是,人类的大脑并不完全相同,事实上,它们有每个脑回和脑沟的精确位置和形状存在 很大的个体差异。
The largest part of the brain, and the most important for cognition, is the cerebrum (Figure 7.1). The cerebrum is composed of two hemispheres, which are more or less mirror images of each other. Each hemisphere can be broken down into four lobes: the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, and occipital lobe (Figure 7.1). Additionally, each hemisphere contains multiple smaller anatomical structures known as gyri (singular: gyrus) and sulci (singular: sulcus). The gyri are the ridges and plateaus on the convoluted surface of the brain, and the sulci are the valleys and canyons that lie between them (Figure 7.2). There is sufficient consistency across different human brains in the topography of these structures to allow the structures to be given specific names, such as the inferior frontal gyrus, or the superior temporal sulcus. Although these terms may seem strange at first, they are important to remember because they provide us with a clear way to refer to the structures, in much the same way that geographical terms allow one to refer unambiguously to different regions on the earth’s surface. However, it is important to emphasize that human brains are not all exactly the same, and in fact there are substantial individual differences with respect to the precise location and shape of each gyrus and sulcus.
许多脑回和脑沟的名称都包含“上”和“下”等术语,用于指代大脑的不同方向。也就是说,就像我们使用北、南、东、西等方便的术语来指代不同的地理方向一样,也有术语来表示大脑的不同解剖方向。上表示向上,下表示向下,前表示在前面,后表示在后面。因此,颞上回位于颞中回上方,颞中回又位于颞下回上方(图 7.2)。此外,外侧表示朝向大脑两侧的外侧(即朝向头部的两侧),而内侧表示朝向头部的中间,即朝向两个半球相遇的地方。最后,人们可以使用术语腹侧来指代大脑的底部,背侧来指代大脑的顶部脑。
Many of the names of the gyri and sulci contain terms like “superior” and “inferior” that are used to refer to different directions in the brain. That is, just as we use convenient terms like north, south, east, and west to refer to different geographical directions, so there are terms to indicate the different anatomical directions in the brain. Superior means up, inferior means down, anterior means in front of, and posterior means behind. Thus the superior temporal gyrus is above the middle temporal gyrus, which in turn is above the inferior temporal gyrus (Figure 7.2). Additionally, lateral means toward the outside of the brain on either side (i.e. toward either side of the head), whereas medial means toward the middle of the head, from each side – that is, toward the place where the two hemispheres meet. Finally, one can use the term ventral to refer to the bottom of the brain, and dorsal to refer to the top of the brain.
每个大脑半球的四周(外侧和内侧)都被皮质覆盖。这个术语来自拉丁语“树皮”,因为它本质上就是树皮——最外层——大脑。大脑皮层包含神经细胞或神经元。大脑包含数百亿甚至数千亿个高度互联的神经元。认知功能以及低级大脑功能源自多个神经元的生化和电化学激活和相互作用。
Each cerebral hemisphere is covered all the way around (both laterally and medially) with cortex. The term comes from the Latin word for ‘bark,’ since it is essentially the bark – the outermost portion – of the brain. Cerebral cortex contains nerve cells, or neurons. The brain contains tens or even hundreds of billions of neurons, which are highly interconnected. Cognitive as well as lower-level brain function emerges from the biochemical and electrochemical activation and interaction of multiple neurons.
图 7.3显示了典型的神经元。电化学神经冲动起源于树突和细胞体,并沿着轴突传导至轴突末端。轴突周围的髓鞘绝缘层提高了神经冲动的传输速度。当冲动到达轴突末端时,会导致分子的释放被称为神经递质,它们穿过起源神经元的轴突末端与另一个神经元的树突和细胞体之间的突触。神经递质随后与接收神经元上的受体分子结合,这可能导致该神经元反过来产生自己的神经冲动。
A prototypical neuron is shown in Figure 7.3. Electrochemical nerve impulses originate in the dendrites and cell body, and are conducted along the axon to the axon terminals. The myelin insulation around the axon improves the transmission speed of the nerve impulses. When an impulse arrives at an axon terminal, it results in the release of molecules called neurotransmitters, which cross the synapse between the axon terminal of the originating neuron and the dendrites and cell body of another neuron. The neurotransmitters then bind to receptor molecules on the receiving neurons, which may cause that neuron in turn to generate its own nerve impulse.
由于实际大脑中的树突和细胞体往往呈灰色,因此大脑皮层和包含它们的其他组织被称为灰质。相反,连接各种灰质结构的髓鞘覆盖的轴突是白色的,因为髓鞘是由脂肪构成的。因此,大脑中包含轴突束的组织被称为白质事情。
Because the dendrites and cell bodies tend to be grayish in actual brains, the cerebral cortex and other tissue that contains them is called gray matter. In contrast, the myelin-covered axons that connect the various gray matter structures are white, because myelin is made of fat. Therefore the tissue in the brain that contains bundles of axons is called white matter.
大脑皮层中有许多类型的神经元,皮层的不同区域所含的神经元类型以及神经元在皮层各层的分布也不同。这使我们能够根据细胞构成的差异(即细胞结构)来区分大脑区域。最简单的区别是大脑皮层之间——包含六个神经元层,几乎存在于所有大脑除某些内侧颞叶区域外还有进化较古老的皮层形式,它们包含较少的神经元层,并且位于这些内侧颞叶区域。
There are many types of neurons in the cerebral cortex, and different regions of cortex differ in the types of neurons they contain, as well as in the neurons’ distribution across cortical layers. This allows us to differentiate brain regions with respect to these differences in their cellular makeup – that is, with respect to their cytoarchitectonics. The simplest distinction is that between neocortex – which contains six neuronal layers, and is found in almost all of the cerebrum except for certain medial temporal lobe regions – and evolutionarily older forms of cortex, which contain fewer neuronal layers, and are found in these medial temporal regions.
还可以对皮质区域(包括新皮质内)进行更细粒度的细胞结构区分。此外,在不同人的大脑中,这些区域的位置大致相同。由于这种一致性,这些区域可以作为解剖标志。虽然已经开发了绘制细胞结构区域的不同方法,但迄今为止,当今使用最广泛的细胞结构绘图系统是由Korbinian Brodmann 在 20 世纪初 (Brodmann 1909 ) 的脑区 (图 7.4 )。每个Brodmann 区(也简称为BA ) 都有不同的细胞结构组成 (即每个区域包含略有不同的神经元类型或神经元分布),并且每个区域在大脑中的解剖位置也不同。但请注意,由于语言生物学研究中使用的大多数方法 (见下文) 仅提供结构解剖信息,而根本没有细胞结构信息,因此关于语言细胞结构基础的主张 (例如“语法可以定位到 BA 44”) 必须被视为仅有的作为近似值。
Finer-grained cytoarchitectonic distinctions between cortical regions, including within neocortex, can also be made. Moreover, particular cytoarchitectonic regions are found in more or less the same location in the cerebrum in different people. Thanks to this consistency, these regions can serve as anatomical landmarks. Although different ways of mapping cytoarchitectonic regions have been developed, by far the most widely used cytoarchitectonic mapping system today is that developed by Korbinian Brodmann in the early 1900s (Brodmann 1909) (Figure 7.4). Each Brodmann’s area (also referred to simply as BA) has a different cytoarchitectonic makeup (i.e. each contains somewhat different neuron types or distributions of neurons), and each has a different anatomical location in the cerebrum. Note, however, that since most of the methods used in the study of the biology of language (see below) provide only structural anatomical information, with no cytoarchitectonic information at all, claims regarding the cytoarchitectonic basis of language (e.g. “grammar can be localized to BA 44”) must be taken only as approximations.
大多数关于高级认知功能(包括语言)的大脑基础的研究都集中在大脑皮层区域,尤其是外侧新皮层区域,如图 7.2和7.4所示。然而,越来越清楚的是,其他大脑结构也在语言中发挥作用。小脑位于大脑下方,位于大脑后部。头部(见图7.1),过去被认为是仅对运动重要的结构。然而,越来越多的证据表明小脑也与语言、记忆、情感和其他认知功能有关。 域。大脑内部深处也有许多皮层下结构(图 7.5和7.6)。而这些灰质结构包括基底神经节和海马体以前人们认为它们主要参与运动和记忆等领域,但正如我们将在下面看到的,最近的证据表明,它们对于语言。
Most studies of the brain basis of higher cognitive functions, including language, have focused on cortical regions of the cerebrum, especially lateral neocortical regions, as shown in Figures 7.2 and 7.4. However, it has become increasingly clear that other brain structures also play roles in language. The cerebellum, which lies below the cerebrum at the back of the head (see Figure 7.1), used to be thought of as a structure important only for movement. However, accumulating evidence also implicates the cerebellum in language, memory, emotion, and other cognitive domains. There are also a number of subcortical structures deep inside the cerebrum itself (Figures 7.5 and 7.6). Whereas these gray matter structures, which include the basal ganglia and the hippocampus, were previously thought to be mainly involved in domains such as movement and memory, recent evidence, as we will see below, suggests they are also important for language.
最后,重要的是要记住,大脑的任何部分都不是单独运作的。相反,大脑是由结构网络组成的,这些结构共同解决问题。因此,重要的是确定完成给定功能集的整个网络或系统,以及其每个部分如何对这些功能做出贡献功能。
Finally, it is important to keep in mind that no part of the brain acts on its own. Rather, the brain is made up of networks of structures that work together to solve problems. It is therefore important to identify the entire network, or system, that accomplishes a given set of functions, as well as how each of its parts contributes to those functions.
关于语言生物学,我们可能会问很多问题。这里我们重点关注四大问题,它们一直是并且将继续是主要的研究领域:生物基质、生物时间动力学、可分离性和领域特异性。
There are many questions that we might ask about the biology of language. Here we focus on four broad issues, all of which have been and continue to be major areas of research: biological substrates, biotemporal dynamics, separability, and domain specificity.
语言依赖于哪些解剖结构、细胞结构区域、脑网络、神经元类型、神经递质、激素、基因和其他生物基质,以及它们在语言中各自发挥哪些特定的功能作用?语言的生物学基础本身就很有趣,但它们也可能为语言的处理和表达提供启示。例如,语言的不同方面(如词汇和句法处理)存在不同的生物学关联,这显然对语言的结构有影响。此外,由于有证据表明重要的语言和非语言功能依赖于共同的神经认知基质,这些基质在这些不同领域中的作用相似,我们对大脑及其在其他认知功能中的作用的大量独立知识可能会导致对语言的新预测——这些预测在单独的语言研究中不太可能出现。
What anatomical structures, cytoarchitectonic regions, brain networks, neuron types, neurotransmitters, hormones, genes, and other biological substrates does language depend on, and what specific functional roles in language does each one play? The biological underpinnings of language are interesting in their own right, but they are also likely to shed light on the processing and representation of language. For example, the existence of distinct biological correlates for different aspects of language, such as lexical and syntactic processing, clearly has implications for the structure of language. Moreover, because evidence suggests that important language and nonlanguage functions depend on common neurocognitive substrates, which work similarly across these different domains, our vast independent knowledge of the brain and its role in other cognitive functions is likely to lead to novel predictions about language – predictions that would be far less likely to be entertained in the isolated study of language alone.
虽然语言的生物学基础可以在多个层面进行研究,但语言的功能神经解剖学是迄今为止研究最深入的。这里的目标是将特定的语言功能映射或定位到特定的大脑区域。最常见的方法是将语言和其他认知功能映射到解剖结构,例如一个或另一个半球(或双侧,即两侧)的特定脑回或脑沟。虽然语言的大脑基础的绝大多数研究都集中在神经解剖学上,但人们也可以研究语言的其他生物学基础,包括语言所涉及的神经元、神经递质和受体的类型。每种类型在大脑中都有特定的区域分布。例如,神经递质多巴胺在额叶皮层中特别普遍,基底神经节和某些其他结构。因此,人们还可以定位构成语言基础的神经元、神经递质和受体的类型。激素 也对大脑功能有很大影响,同样对特定大脑区域有特殊影响。例如,雌激素在海马体学习中起着关键作用。重要的是,由于人们对大脑细胞和分子的生物学及其在动物和人类非语言功能中的作用了解甚多,因此人们可以做出新的预测关于它们在语言中的潜在作用——包括它们的药理作用,这对于语言的矫正尤为重要失调。
Although the biological substrates of language can be investigated at many levels, the functional neuroanatomy of language has been by far the most intensively examined. The goal here is to map, or localize, particular language functions to particular brain regions. The most common approach is to map language and other cognitive functions to anatomical structures such as specific gyri or sulci in one or the other hemisphere (or bilaterally, i.e. on both sides). Although the vast majority of studies of the brain bases of language have focused on neuroanatomy, one can also examine other biological substrates of language, including the types of neurons, neurotransmitters, and receptors involved in language. Each type has a particular regional distribution in the brain. For example, the neurotransmitter dopamine is especially prevalent in frontal cortex, the basal ganglia, and certain other structures. Therefore one can also localize the types of neurons, neurotransmitters, and receptors that underlie language. Hormones also have a strong influence on brain functioning, again with particular effects in particular brain regions. For example, estrogen plays a key role in learning in the hippocampus. Importantly, because much is known about the biology of the cells and molecules in the brain, and their roles in nonlanguage functions in animals as well as humans, one can make novel predictions about their potential roles in language – including their pharmacological (drug) effects, which are especially important for the remediation of language disorders.
最后,近年来,人们对语言遗传学的兴趣急剧增加。同一基因的不同等位基因(版本)的功能各不相同(例如,受体基因的不同等位基因与特定神经递质的结合能力可能不同),这通常会导致正常范围内的细微差异。 行为遗传学领域利用这种变异来研究个体或群体之间语言(和其他认知)功能差异的遗传基础。双胞胎研究测试同卵双胞胎(100% 共享遗传物质)与异卵双胞胎(平均只有 50% 共享遗传物质)之间的语言能力相关性是否更高。这种模式表明遗传因素确实会影响这些能力。同样,在收养研究中,一方面研究被收养儿童与其亲生亲属之间的相对相关性强度,另一方面研究这些儿童与其收养亲属之间的相对相关性强度。关联研究和关联研究使用各种技术来识别与特定语言功能或功能障碍相关的染色体实际区域,甚至基因本身。甚至可以准确地揭示基因及其突变如何导致特定行为。例如,已知某些基因编码特定的神经递质受体,而这些受体又可以显示为语言或其他认知领域的基础。
Finally, interest in the genetics of language has increased dramatically in recent years. Different alleles (versions) of the same gene vary in their functionality (e.g. different alleles for a receptor gene may differ in their ability to bind a given neurotransmitter), often resulting in subtle differences well within the normal range. The field of behavioral genetics takes advantage of such variation to examine the genetic basis of differences in linguistic (and other cognitive) functions between individuals or groups. Twin studies test whether language abilities are more highly correlated for identical twins, who share 100 percent of their genetic material, than for fraternal twins, who share, on average, only 50 percent of their genetic material. Such a pattern would suggest that genetic factors do indeed affect these abilities. Similarly, in adoption studies one examines the relative strength of correlations between adopted children and their biological relatives on the one hand, and between these children and their adoptive relatives on the other. Linkage studies and association studies use a variety of techniques to identify the actual regions of chromosomes, or even the genes themselves, that are associated with a particular language function or dysfunction. It is even possible to reveal exactly how genes and their mutations lead to particular behaviors. For example, some genes are known to code for specific neurotransmitter receptors, which in turn can be shown to underlie language or other cognitive domains.
将语言功能与特定的大脑结构,甚至特定的细胞、分子或基因联系起来是一回事。但我们还想知道在人们实际产生或理解语言时,这些生物基质是如何被使用的。语言处理的时空动态不仅考虑了语言的解剖结构,还考虑了语言的实时时间相互作用,即哪些结构在何时以何种顺序被激活。因此,了解语言处理的时空动态本质上就是了解大脑活动随时间变化的电影。例如,研究已经开始揭示大脑活动的故事板,即当人们命名图片、处理语法或产生英语过去时形式时(见图7.11)。更一般地说,语言的生物时间动态是指语言处理的实时生物学,它不仅反映了语言背后的大脑结构的实时相互作用,还反映了该领域的细胞、分子甚至遗传基础的实时相互作用。
It’s one thing to tie language functions to particular brain structures, or even to specific cells, molecules, or genes. But we also want to know how these biological substrates are used as one is actually producing or comprehending language. The spatiotemporal dynamics of language processing takes into account not only the anatomy of language, but also its real-time temporal interplay, i.e. which structures are activated when, and in what order. Thus to know the spatiotemporal dynamics of language processing is essentially to know the movie of brain activity through time. For example, studies have begun to reveal the storyboard of brain activity as one names pictures, processes syntax, or produces English past-tense forms (see Figure 7.11). More generally, the biotemporal dynamics of language refers to the real-time biology of language processing, reflecting the real-time interplay not only of the brain structures underlying language, but also of the cellular, molecular, and even genetic bases of this domain.
语言研究中的一个主要问题是不同的语言功能是否依赖于不同的或共同的生物认知基础。这个问题往往将研究人员分成“分裂者”和“整合者”两个对立阵营。分裂者认为,不同的语言的各个方面取决于不同的生物认知相关因素。多年来,各种研究人员提出了各种各样的语言划分方法,包括语法与词汇、形态与句法、句法知识与句法处理、词汇习得与词汇知识。根据划分者的说法,这些不同的语言领域或功能是可分离的。也就是说,每个领域或功能在很大程度上都依赖于自己的生物认知基础,这些基础可以在很大程度上独立于其他语言功能的基础而运作。相反,语言整合者否认可分离性,而是认为语言的不同方面具有共同的神经认知相关因素。
A major question in the study of language is whether different language functions depend on distinct or common biocognitive substrates. This question tends to divide researchers into contrasting camps of “splitters” and “lumpers.” The splitters argue that different aspects of language depend on distinct biocognitive correlates. Over the years, various researchers have suggested a wide range of language splits, including grammar vs. lexicon, morphology vs. syntax, syntactic knowledge vs. syntactic processing, and lexical acquisition vs. lexical knowledge. According to the splitters, these various linguistic domains or functions are separable. That is, each one depends largely on its own biocognitive substrates, which can operate for the most part independently of the substrates of other language functions. In contrast, lumpers deny separability, and instead suggest that different aspects of language share common neurocognitive correlates.
当然,在远距离合并论者和远距离分裂论者之间可以采取许多中间立场。例如,一种观点承认存在不同的生物认知基质,但认为这些基质相互作用的程度之深,以至于它们在许多语言功能中的作用在功能上不可分割(McClelland and Patterson 2002)。另一种观点认为,存储的词汇化知识与复杂结构的语法组成之间存在重大分歧,这种分歧存在于多个语言领域,包括句法和形态学(乌尔曼(2001 年)。
Of course many intermediate positions can be taken between the far-lumpers and the far-splitters. For example, one view admits the existence of distinct biocognitive substrates, but argues that these interact to such an extent that they are functionally inseparable with respect to their role in many language functions (McClelland and Patterson 2002). Another view claims that there exists a major split between stored lexicalized knowledge and the grammatical composition of complex structures, and that this split holds over several linguistic domains, including syntax and morphology (Ullman 2001).
语言所依赖的生物学基础是否只用于这种认知能力?也就是说,它们是特定领域的吗?还是它们具有通用性,因为它们也是其他非语言功能的基础?这个问题与可分离性问题相关,但又有区别。在可分离性问题中,我们要问的是语言的两个或多个方面(如词汇和语法能力)是否依赖于相同或不同的基础。相比之下,我们在这里要问的是语言是否也依赖于 非语言功能的基础,如注意力、记忆力或运动。
Are the biological substrates that underlie language dedicated exclusively to this cognitive capacity – that is are they domain-specific? Or are they domain-general in that they also underlie other, nonlanguage, functions? This issue is related to but distinct from the issue of separability. In the case of separability, we are asking whether two or more aspects of language, such as lexical and grammatical abilities, rely on the same or different substrates. In contrast, here we are asking whether language depends on substrates that also underlie nonlanguage functions, such as attention, memory, or movement.
和可分离性一样,在这里我们也有分而治之者和分裂者,以及介于两者之间的观点。远分裂者认为语言或特定的语言功能依赖于专用于这些功能的基础(Fodor 1983;Grodzinsky 2000;van der Lely 2005)。远分而治之者则认为语言并没有什么特别之处,语言的所有方面都依赖于领域通用的系统或机制(Elman 等人1996 ; McClelland等人1986 ; Seidenberg 1997)。在两者之间,我们发现了许多观点,比如有人认为词汇知识和语法组成依赖于不同的大脑系统,而每个系统都构成一种特定类型记忆的基础(Ullman 2001)。
Just as with separability, here too we find lumpers and splitters, as well as those in between. The far-splitters argue that language, or specific language functions, depend on substrates that are dedicated solely to these functions (Fodor 1983; Grodzinsky 2000; van der Lely 2005). The far-lumpers argue instead that there is nothing special at all about language, and that all aspects of language depend on domain-general systems or mechanisms (Elman et al. 1996; McClelland et al. 1986; Seidenberg 1997). In between we find a number of positions, such as the suggestion that lexicalized knowledge and grammatical composition depend on distinct brain systems that each underlie a particular type of memory (Ullman 2001).
最后,重要的是要记住,领域特定性问题不同于另一个问题,即物种特异性。在领域特异性的情况下,我们要问的是语言是否依赖于神经认知基础,而这些基础也是人类其他功能的基础。在物种特异性的情况下,我们要问的是语言或特定的语言能力是否依赖于其他动物中也存在的基础,即使它们构成了略有不同的功能。例如,有人认为递归是人类独有的(但可能依赖于人类领域的通用机制),而语言的其他方面,如学习概念, 可能依赖于其他物种中也发现的底物(Hauser等人,2002 年)。请注意,证明非人类物种可以执行特定的人类功能(例如递归)并不意味着该物种使用与人类相同的生物认知底物来执行该功能,因为许多任务可以由大脑中的多种机制或系统执行。脑。
Finally, it is important to keep in mind that the question of domain-specificity is distinct from that of another issue, that of species-specificity. In the case of domain-specificity, we are asking whether language depends on neurocognitive substrates that also underlie other functions in humans. In the case of species-specificity, we are asking whether language, or particular language abilities, depends on substrates that also exist in other animals, even if they underlie somewhat different functions. For example, it has been argued that recursion is uniquely human (but possibly dependent on domain-general mechanisms in humans), whereas other aspects of language, such as learning concepts, may rely on substrates that are also found in other species (Hauser et al. 2002). Note that demonstrating that a nonhuman species can carry out a particular human function (e.g. recursion) does not mean that this species is using the same biocognitive substrates as humans to perform the function, since many tasks can be carried out by more than one mechanism or system in the brain.
两种功能的可分离性通常通过测试这些功能的生物认知关联(例如大脑活动)之间的分离性来检查。在“单一分离”中,所测试的功能之一与特定生物认知关联性的关联性比另一个更强。例如,可能发现特定大脑区域中语法处理的神经活动比词汇处理的神经活动更强烈,或者该区域的损伤可能导致语法障碍比词汇障碍更严重。然而,单一分离并不一定表明这两种功能实际上依赖于不同的基础。相反,一种功能或任务可能只是更困难。例如,如果词汇处理所需的大脑资源比语法处理少,或者词汇任务比探究语法的任务更容易,那么即使这两者依赖于相同的神经关联,词汇任务的激活和障碍也比语法任务少。
The separability of two functions is generally examined by testing for dissociations between the biocognitive correlates (e.g. brain activity) of these functions. In a “single dissociation,” one of the functions being tested is more strongly associated with a particular biocognitive correlate than is the other. For example, greater neural activity in a specific brain region may be found for grammatical than for lexical processing, or damage to this region may result in greater grammatical than lexical impairments. However, single dissociations do not necessarily suggest that the two functions actually depend on different substrates. Rather, one function or task might simply be more difficult. For example, if lexical processing simply requires fewer brain resources than grammatical processing, or if the lexical task is easier than the task probing grammar, one might find less activation and fewer impairments for the lexical than the grammatical task, even if the two depend on the same neural correlates.
双重解离 在很大程度上避免了这个问题。在双重分离中,一种功能与一种生物认知基质相关,而另一种功能与另一种基质相关。例如,一个区域在语法处理过程中可能比词汇处理更活跃,而另一个区域在词汇处理过程中表现出比语法处理更大的激活。同样,对一个大脑结构的损伤可能导致更大的语法障碍,而对另一个结构的损伤会导致更大的词汇缺陷。在这些情况下,很难说一个或另一个功能或任务太容易,因为每个功能或任务都比另一个产生更大的激活和损伤。因此,双重分离表明可分离性。然而,究竟哪些功能是可分离的可能并不清楚。因此,如果探究词汇和语法的任务不仅在对词汇和语法的依赖性上不同,而且在其他方面也不同(例如在语义和音系学上),那么这些因素,而不是词汇和语法,实际上可能解释了双重分离。因此,控制所有潜在混杂因素的仔细实验设计至关重要。
Double dissociations largely avoid this problem. In a double dissociation, one function is associated with one biocognitive substrate, while another function is associated with another substrate. For example, one region might be more active during grammatical than lexical processing, while another region shows greater activation for lexical than for grammatical processing. Similarly, damage to one brain structure may cause greater grammatical impairments, while damage to another structure causes greater lexical deficits. In these cases it is difficult to argue that one or the other function or task is too easy, since each yielded greater activation and impairments than the other. Thus double dissociations suggest separability. However, exactly which functions are separable might not be clear. Thus if the tasks probing lexicon and grammar differ not just in their dependence on lexicon and grammar, but also in other ways (e.g. in semantics and phonology), then these factors rather than lexicon and grammar may actually explain the double dissociation. Therefore careful experimental design controlling for all potential confounding factors is critical.
如果没有发现任何分离怎么办?一方面,缺乏分离可能被认为表明缺乏可分离性。事实上,人们经常得出这样的结论。然而,在科学中,缺乏差异(“零结果”)不能轻易地被理解为意味着实际上没有差异。相反,人们可能使用了错误的任务、错误的方法、没有适当地分析数据等等。例如,该方法可能不够灵敏,无法检测到所涉及的不同大脑区域,或者任务可能实际上没有正确测试词汇或语法能力。
What if one does not find any dissociations? On the one hand, a lack of dissociations might be taken to suggest a lack of separability. Indeed, such a conclusion is often drawn. However, in science the lack of a difference (a “null result”) cannot easily be taken to imply that there is in fact no difference. Rather, one might be using the wrong tasks, the wrong methods, not analyzing the data appropriately, and so on. For example, the method might not be sensitive enough to detect the different brain regions involved, or the tasks might not actually properly test lexical or grammatical abilities.
我们如何回答上述问题?虽然十年或二十年前的选择更为有限,但今天有各种各样的方法可供选择。然而,没有一种方法是完美的,每种方法都有不同的优点和缺点。研究人员试图选择最合适的技术来回答给定的问题。例如,一些方法更适合定位大脑中的功能,而另一些方法则更好地揭示这些过程的时间进程。研究人员尝试通过多种方法(理想情况下是通过一系列方法) 获取趋同证据,因为多种方法得出的、指向同一结论的结果比任何单一方法得出的结果更具说服力。
How can we answer the questions laid out above? Although the options were more restricted ten or twenty years ago, today a wide range of methods are available. However, none is perfect, and each method has a different set of strengths and weaknesses. Researchers try to choose the most appropriate techniques for answering a given question. For example, some methods are better at localizing functions in the brain, while others are better at revealing the time courses of these processes. Researchers try to obtain converging evidence from more than one method – ideally from a whole range of methods – since findings from multiple methods that all point to the same conclusion are more convincing than findings from any single approach.
这里我们将简要介绍目前广泛用于研究大脑和语言的一些方法,以及迄今为止主要应用于认知神经科学其他领域但有望在语言研究中越来越重要的一些方法。请注意,这不是一个详尽的清单;其他方法包括近红外光谱 (NIRS) 和各种用于识别认知分子基质的技术。
Here we will briefly examine some methods that are currently widely used in the study of brain and language, as well as some that have thus far been employed primarily in other areas of cognitive neuroscience, but promise to become increasingly relevant in the study of language. Note that this is not an exhaustive list; other approaches include near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and a wide range of techniques for identifying the molecular substrates of cognition.
生物学方法必须辅以行为和计算方法。各种心理语言学测量方法可以阐明上述一些问题。例如,口头或手动反应的反应时间,或阅读过程中眼球运动的位置和时间,可以阐明时间动态和可分离性的问题。同样,来自理论语言学的证据(例如可接受性判断)可以阐明可分离性和表征问题。语言的神经和认知基础的计算建模可以证明假设机制在不同研究层面(例如从分子机制向上)的合理性,并可以得出重要的新预测。理想情况下,研究人员会获得并评估所有这些类型的数据,以及下面描述的神经证据,从而产生多方面的视角和尽可能广泛的潜在融合证据。
Biological methods must be complemented by behavioral and computational approaches. A wide range of psycholinguistic measurements can shed light on some of the questions above. For example, reaction times of spoken or manual responses, or the locations and timing of eye movements during reading, can elucidate questions of temporal dynamics and separability. Similarly, evidence from theoretical linguistics (e.g. acceptability judgments) can shed light on issues of separability as well as representation. Computational modeling of the neural and cognitive bases of language can demonstrate the plausibility of hypothesized mechanisms at various levels of investigation (e.g. from molecular mechanisms on up), and can lead to important new predictions. Ideally, researchers obtain and evaluate all of these types of data, together with the sorts of neural evidence described below, producing a multifaceted perspective, and the widest possible array of potential converging evidence.
如果一个人遭受脑损伤,然后失去了做某些事情的能力,人们可以合理地推断,失去的功能取决于受损的结构。例如,如果特定颞叶结构的损伤持续导致词汇处理受损,人们可以推断这些结构对于词汇处理是必需的。识别这种结构-功能对应关系是损伤方法的基本逻辑的基础。
If a person suffers from brain damage, and then loses the ability to do certain things, one might reasonably infer that the lost functions depended on the damaged structures. For example, if lesions to particular temporal lobe structures consistently lead to impairments of lexical processing, one may infer that these structures are necessary for lexical processing. The identification of such structure–function correspondences underlies the basic logic of the lesion method.
直到最近,病变法还是研究语言大脑基础的唯一广泛使用的方法。虽然这种方法看起来有些粗糙,但它可以用来测试可分离性、领域特异性和定位,并且它已经为我们理解语言带来了重大进展。病变法至今仍被广泛使用,不仅用于推断正常的大脑功能,还用于了解各种神经损伤的后果。它首先用于患有急性损伤的患者,例如中风患者、头部创伤患者,或者在特定脑部部位已被手术切除以切除肿瘤或其他患病组织的情况下(例如著名的 HM 患者)。此外,该方法还用于研究进行性神经功能障碍,这样的如阿尔茨海默病、帕金森病、亨廷顿病等成人发病的神经退行性疾病。在某些此类疾病中,疾病早期的退化仅限于特定的大脑结构(例如亨廷顿氏病中的基底神经节),从而可以相对清晰地了解结构和功能推论。
Until recently, the lesion method was the only approach that was widely used in the study of the brain bases of language. Although it may seem somewhat crude, it can be used to test for separability, domain-specificity, and localization, and it has led to important advances in our understanding of language. The lesion approach is still commonly employed today, not just to infer normal brain function, but also to understand the consequences of a variety of neural insults. It is used, first of all, with patients who have acute damage, such as stroke victims, head trauma patients, or in cases where specific portions of the brain have been surgically removed to remove tumors or other diseased tissue (e.g. the famous patient H.M.). In addition, the method is used to study progressive neurological dysfunction, such as in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and other adult-onset neurodegenerative diseases. In some of these disorders the degeneration in early stages of the disease is quite limited to specific brain structures (e.g. the basal ganglia in Hungtington’s disease), allowing for relatively clear structure–function inferences.
然而,损伤法也存在许多问题。显然,科学家不能到处损伤他们的实验对象。必须对那些恰好遭受过某种脑损伤的患者进行测试。但这种“偶然实验”并不理想。人们无法选择损伤的位置或大小,因为损伤可能涉及多个脑结构,这使得结构功能推断变得复杂:当许多脑结构受损时,如何知道哪个脑结构发挥什么作用?时机也是一个问题。如果在急性脑损伤发生后等待太久,其他脑结构可能会接管受损脑结构曾经发挥的一些功能。这种补偿混淆了受损大脑结构和受损功能之间的原始关系。另一方面,如果在患者中风或头部受伤后过快进行测试,功能损失可能远大于受损区域的损失,因为附近区域通常会受到组织肿胀和血流减少等因素的暂时影响。在实践中,研究人员往往会在较长时间内犯错,通常在急性脑损伤后等待数月甚至一年或更长时间才对患者进行测试。
However, there are also a number of problems with the lesion method. Clearly, scientists cannot go around lesioning their subjects. One must test those patients who happen to have suffered from one or another type of brain injury. But such “accidental experiments” are not ideal. One cannot choose the location or size of the lesion, which may involve multiple brain structures, complicating structure–function inferences: how do you know which brain structure does what when many structures are damaged? Timing is also an issue. If one waits too long after the onset of an acute brain lesion, other structures may take over some of the functions that the damaged structure used to perform. Such compensation confuses the original relationship between the damaged brain structures and the impaired functions. On the other hand, if one tests a patient too quickly after a stroke or head injury, the loss of function can be much greater than is attributable to the damaged regions, because nearby regions are often temporarily affected by factors such as tissue swelling and decreased blood flow. In practice, researchers tend to err on the side of longer periods of time, usually waiting months or even a year or more after acute brain damage before testing a patient.
尽管病变方法经常应用于成人脑损伤的研究,但这种逻辑也适用于儿童。然而,对于儿童期发病的病变以及发育性脑疾病,如 特定语言障碍 (SLI)、阅读障碍、自闭症或威廉斯综合征等,必须特别小心,因为儿童的大脑仍在发育,而且可塑性很强。在许多情况下,这种神经可塑性将使儿童能够弥补大脑损伤或功能障碍——通常比成年人更成功。因此,这些儿童与正常发育儿童之间的任何差异可能反映了补偿机制,也可能反映了由其大脑发育异常引起的任何功能障碍。
Although the lesion method is often applied to the study of adult-onset brain damage, the logic also holds for children. However, with child-onset lesions, as well as in developmental brain disorders such as Specific Language Impairment (SLI), dyslexia, autism, or Williams syndrome, one must be particularly careful since children’s brains are still developing, and are highly plastic. In many cases, this neural plasticity will enable children to compensate for brain damage or dysfunction – usually much more successfully than adults. Any differences between these children and typically developing children may therefore reflect compensatory mechanisms as well as, or perhaps instead of, any dysfunction caused by their abnormally developing brains.
HM 于 2008 年去世,他是一名因 1953 年癫痫手术而患上前行性遗忘症的患者。在这次手术中,他的大部分内侧颞叶结构被切除。半球。
H.M., who died in 2008, was a patient suffering from anterograde amnesia as a result of a 1953 surgery to address his epilepsy. In this surgery most of his medial temporal lobe structures were removed in both hemispheres.
最近的技术进步使我们能够实际成像大脑活动——儿童和成人,无论是否有大脑或行为障碍。因为可以测试正常个体,所以可以避免病变方法固有的补偿等问题。一般的实验方法是在受试者执行涉及感兴趣的认知过程的任务时拍摄大脑活动的图像。通常,人们会比较两种或多种条件下的大脑激活情况,这些条件仅在感兴趣的特定功能方面有所不同。例如,研究已经检查了在处理名词和动词、规则和不规则屈折形式或具有不同句法复杂程度的句子时大脑活动的差异。这样的研究可以揭示结构-功能相关性(用于定位)或单、双分离(用于可分离性和域特异性)。重要的是,神经影像学揭示了哪些结构参与了特定功能,而病变研究揭示了哪些结构是必需的。
Recent technological advances now allow us to actually image brain activity – in children and adults, with or without brain or behavioral impairments. Because one can test normal individuals, it is possible to avoid problems such as compensation that are intrinsic to the lesion method. The general experimental approach is to take images of brain activity while subjects perform tasks that engage cognitive processes of interest. Typically one compares brain activation between two or more conditions that are designed to differ only with respect to the specific functions of interest. For example, studies have examined differences in brain activity during the processing of nouns and verbs, regular and irregular inflected forms, or sentences with varying degrees of syntactic complexity. Such studies can reveal structure–function correlations (for localization) or single and double dissociations (for separability and domain-specificity). Importantly, neuroimaging reveals which structures are involved in a particular function, whereas lesion studies reveal which structures are necessary.
也许最著名的成像方法是绘制大脑血流变化的成像方法,即脑血流动力学。这些技术利用了这样一个事实:当神经元增加其放电频率时,血流会发生某些变化,例如血流量增加和血液中氧气含量的变化。fMRI(功能性磁共振成像)是目前为止使用最广泛的血液动力学神经成像方法。受试者被放置在具有极强磁场的扫描仪中(图 7.7)——通常比地球磁场强一万倍以上。由于氢等原子(在大脑中很常见——存在于水、脂肪、蛋白质等中)对磁力敏感,它们会在磁场中排列整齐,就像指南针的指针与附近的磁铁对齐一样。然后,扫描仪使用无线电波将原子撞出排列,并记录它们在磁场中重新排列时释放的特征信号。然后,这些信号被扫描仪中的接收器拾取,并利用它们重建大脑图像。
Perhaps the best-known imaging methods are those that map changes in blood flow in the brain – that is, brain hemodynamics. These techniques take advantage of the fact that when neurons increase their firing rate, certain changes in the blood stream occur, such as increases in blood flow and changes in the oxygen level in the blood. fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Image) is by far the most widely used hemodynamic neuroimaging method today. Subjects are placed in a scanner with an extremely powerful magnetic field (Figure 7.7) – typically more than ten thousand times stronger than the earth’s magnetic field. Because atoms such as hydrogen (which is very common in the brain – in water, fat, proteins, etc.) are sensitive to magnetic forces, they line up in the magnetic field, just as a compass needle aligns with a magnet placed nearby. The scanner then uses radio waves to knock the atoms out of alignment, and records the characteristic signals they release as they come back into alignment in the field. These signals are then picked up by a receiver in the scanner, which uses them to reconstruct an image of the brain.
除了 fMRI,血流动力学成像技术还包括 SPECT(单光子发射计算机断层扫描)和 PET(正电子发射断层扫描)。 SPECT 的功能成像现在很少见,PET 也不再像 1990 年代那样广泛用于此目的——尽管这两种技术这些技术对于识别语言和其他认知过程背后的神经递质和其他分子仍然非常有用。SPECT 和 PET 都会对血液中的放射性示踪剂进行成像,因此存在潜在的健康风险。因此,这两种方法都相对具有 侵入性,因此并不理想。此外,它们在定位特定大脑区域激活方面的准确性受到以下因素的限制其 空间分辨率不如较新的 fMRI 技术。
In addition to fMRI, hemodynamic imaging techniques include SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) and PET (Positron Emission Tomography). Functional imaging with SPECT is now rare, and PET is no longer used as widely as it was in the 1990s for this purpose – though both techniques are still very useful for identifying the neurotransmitters and other molecules that underlie language and other cognitive processes. Both SPECT and PET image radioactive tracers in the blood, and so have potential health risks. Thus both methods are relatively invasive, and therefore are not ideal. Moreover, their accuracy in localizing activation to particular brain regions is limited by their spatial resolution, which is not as good as that of the newer technique of fMRI.
在结构磁共振 (MR) 图像中,大脑的解剖结构被重建,利用不同分子(例如脂肪、蛋白质、水)中的氢原子发出不同信号的事实(见下 图 7.10中的大脑本身图像)。在构成 fMRI 的功能MR 图像中,人们利用血液中氧合水平的变化。有点违反直觉的是,当神经元增加其放电率(从而增加其对氧气和葡萄糖的能量需求)时,人们通常会观察到氧合血红蛋白相对于脱氧血红蛋白的增加,因为血液带来的氧气多于神经元实际使用的氧气。fMRI 检测到氧合血红蛋白和脱氧血红蛋白之间比率的相应变化,这被称为血氧水平依赖 (BOLD) 效应。由于具有不同神经活动量的大脑区域将具有不同的比率,因此 fMRI 可以间接地对任务条件之间神经活动的区域差异进行成像。
In a structural magnetic resonance (MR) image, the anatomical structures of the brain are reconstructed, taking advantage of the fact that hydrogen atoms in different molecules (e.g. fat, proteins, water) give off different signals (see the image of the brain itself in Figure 7.10 below). In the functional MR images that constitute fMRI, one takes advantage of changes in oxygenation levels in the blood. Somewhat counter-intuitively, when neurons increase their firing rate (and thus increase their need for oxygen and glucose for energy), one generally observes an increase in oxygenated hemoglobin as compared to deoxygenated hemoglobin, as the blood brings in more oxygen than the neurons actually use. fMRI detects the resulting change in the ratio between oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin, which is known as the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) effect. Because brain regions with different amounts of neural activity will have different ratios, fMRI can indirectly image regional differences in neural activity between task conditions.
fMRI 具有极高的空间分辨率,可以区分相隔几毫米的激活区域。此外,由于可以在与 fMRI 功能图像相同的扫描会话中获取大脑解剖结构图像,因此很容易将特定受试者的功能(激活)图像与其自己的结构(解剖)图像对齐和叠加。这使我们能够将大脑活动定位到每个受试者的精确结构上。此外,与 PET 不同,fMRI 不涉及辐射,因此可以多次扫描特定受试者而不会产生任何已知的不良影响。这对于检查伴随发育、学习或疾病治疗干预的大脑活动的缓慢变化尤其重要。在这些情况下,受试者可以在几天、几周、几个月甚至几年的时间内被带回实验室进行多次扫描。
fMRI provides superb spatial resolution, allowing one to distinguish areas of activation even a few millimeters apart. Moreover, because structural images of brain anatomy can be acquired in the same scanning session as the functional images of fMRI, it is easy to align and overlay the functional (activation) images from a given subject onto his or her own structural (anatomical) images. This allows one to localize brain activity to precise structures in each subject. Also, unlike PET, fMRI does not involve radiation, so a given subject can be scanned multiple times with no known adverse effects. This is especially important for examining the slow changes in brain activity that accompany development, learning, or therapeutic intervention for disorders. In these cases, subjects can be brought back to the lab for multiple scanning sessions over the course of days, weeks, months, or even years.
然而,与每种方法一样,fMRI 也有其局限性。首先,MRI 扫描仪的强磁场在某些情况下可能非常危险(例如,如果您体内有弹片)。其次,响应神经活动而发生的血流动力学变化太慢(大约几秒),无法检测到实时处理,因此无法使用 fMRI 来测量语言的时空动态——即语言使用的电影。因此,不仅要用 fMRI 来测试给定的语言过程,还要用 ERP 或 MEG(见下文)等技术来测试,这些技术可以每毫秒甚至更快地测量大脑活动——也就是说,使用具有非常高颞解决。
However, as with every method, fMRI has its limitations. First, the very strong magnetic fields of the MRI scanner can be quite dangerous in some circumstances (e.g. if you have shrapnel in your body). Second, the hemodynamic changes that take place in response to neural activity are too slow (on the order of seconds) to allow the detection of real-time processing, so one can’t use fMRI to measure the spatiotemporal dynamics of language – that is, the movie of language use. It is therefore important to test a given linguistic process not only with fMRI, but also with techniques such as ERPs or MEG (see below) that can measure brain activity every millisecond or even faster – that is, with techniques that have very high temporal resolution.
事件相关电位 (ERP) 是在受试者接受刺激“事件”(例如一个单词)后,通过头皮记录大脑活动的电位,图片或声音(图 7.8)。电位通过与 ERP 帽绑定的电极记录在头皮上,这样可以轻松应用电极并将其放置在头部。每个刺激(例如图 7.8中的听觉刺激)都与正在进行的脑电图 (EEG)。这些时间锁定的信号在被放大后被平均,以消除信号中不特定于刺激的部分,从而产生 ERP 波形。
Event-related potentials (ERPs) are scalp-recorded electrical potentials of the brain activity that takes place after subjects are presented with a stimulus “event,” such as a word, picture, or sound (Figure 7.8). The electrical potentials are recorded at the scalp from electrodes that are bound to ERP caps, allowing for the easy application and consistent placement of electrodes on the head. Each stimulus – such as the auditory stimulus in Figure 7.8 – is time-locked to the ongoing EEG (Electroencephalogram). After being amplified, these time-locked signals are averaged to eliminate the part of the signal that is not specific to the stimulus, resulting in the ERP waveform.
与语言理解相关的高级认知过程,例如词汇访问或句法处理的基础过程,反映在呈现刺激事件(例如看到或听到一个单词后)后约 100 到 1000 毫秒之间 ERP 信号的特征变化中。在特定实验条件下持续发现的 ERP 波中的特征峰值(即“凸起”或“下降”)被称为作为ERP 成分。这些包括图 7.8中标记的所谓的 ELAN、P200、N400 和 P600 成分(此处仅显示单个电极)。不同的 ERP 成分可以通过各种因素来识别和区分,包括它们的峰值潜伏期(刺激开始和成分峰值之间的时间)、它们的峰值幅度(峰值的高度)、它们的头皮分布(成分在哪些电极上最强并延伸到哪些电极)以及它们的极性(它们是正的还是负的电压峰值;在 ERP 图中,例如图 7.8所示,负值通常显示为向上而不是向下!)。
Higher cognitive processes relevant to language comprehension, such as those underlying lexical access or syntactic processing, are reflected in characteristic changes in the ERP signal between about 100 and 1000 milliseconds after presentation of the stimulus event (e.g. after seeing or hearing a word). Characteristic peaks (i.e. “bumps” or “dips”) in the ERP wave that are consistently found in particular experimental conditions are referred to as ERP components. These include the so-called ELAN, P200, N400, and P600 components labeled in Figure 7.8 (shown here for only a single electrode). Different ERP components can be identified and distinguished by various factors, including their peak latency (the time between the stimulus onset and the peak of the component), their peak amplitude (the height of the peak), their scalp distribution (which electrodes the component is strongest at and extends to), and their polarity (whether they have positive or negative voltage peaks; in ERP diagrams, such as that shown in Figure 7.8, negative is traditionally shown as up rather than down!).
与 fMRI 等血液动力学神经成像一样,在 ERP 实验中,受试者执行探测特定认知功能的任务,并且通常会比较对比实验条件之间的 ERP 信号。然而,与血液动力学成像技术不同,ERP 反映的是实际的电生理神经元活动,而不是与大脑活动间接相关的血流变化。神经元的电生理变化发生在毫秒级。它们可以在头皮上无延迟地测量,并且具有几乎无限的时间分辨率,每秒最多可进行 20,000 次或更多次测量。因此,人们实际上可以在正在进行的语言处理过程中实时记录大脑活动。这就是为什么 ERP 被广泛用于补充语言处理研究中的传统心理语言学技术的主要原因。
As with hemodynamic neuroimaging like fMRI, in an ERP experiment subjects perform tasks that probe particular cognitive functions, and one typically compares the ERP signals between contrasting experimental conditions. Unlike hemodynamic imaging techniques, however, ERPs reflect actual electrophysiological neuronal activity, not changes in blood flow that are only indirectly related to brain activity. Electrophysiological changes in neurons take place on the order of milliseconds. They can be measured at the scalp without delay and with virtually unlimited temporal resolution, with up to 20,000 or more measurements per second. Therefore one can actually record brain activity in real time during ongoing language processing. This is a major reason why ERPs have been widely used to complement traditional psycholinguistic techniques in the study of language processing.
不幸的是,ERP 在时间分辨率方面的优势伴随着在空间分辨率。虽然并非不可能,但要确定产生头皮记录电位的实际大脑结构却非常困难。电位不仅在穿过头骨时会发生扭曲,而且还有“逆问题”:大脑中无数种不同的源组合可以在头皮上产生相同的模式。虽然可以通过使用结构和功能 MRI 的信息来限制大脑中可能的信号源(例如,假设只有在同一任务中被 fMRI 激活的区域才可能产生 ERP 信号)来在一定程度上克服逆问题,但仍存在一些不确定性,因此无法高度可靠地定位 ERP 信号。
Unfortunately, ERPs’ advantage in temporal resolution is accompanied by a strong disadvantage in spatial resolution. It turns out to be quite difficult, though not impossible, to identify the actual brain structures that generate scalp-recorded potentials. Not only is the electrical potential warped as it passes through the skull, but in addition, there is the “inverse problem”: an infinite number of different combinations of sources within the brain can generate identical patterns at the scalp. Although the inverse problem can be somewhat overcome by using information from structural and functional MRI to limit the possible sources of signal in the brain (e.g. by assuming that only areas activated by fMRI in the same task are likely to generate the ERP signal), some uncertainty remains, and therefore one cannot localize the ERP signal with a high degree of reliability.
ERP 还存在其他限制。单个神经元放电的电活动太小,无法在脑外测量。通常,只有当数百甚至数千个具有相似几何方向的神经元同时活跃时,ERP 才可检测到。事实证明,只有某些类型的神经元往往具有这些特性,因此 ERP 主要捕获这些神经元。最后,在 ERP 研究中大声说话是相当困难的,因为肌肉和运动神经元都会产生电噪声,因此几乎所有的 ERP 语言研究都局限于语言感知(阅读或聆听)。
ERPs also have other limitations. The electrical activity of a single neuron firing is much too small to measure outside the brain. ERPs are generally detectable only when hundreds or even thousands of neurons with a similar geometrical orientation are active at the same time. It turns out that only certain types of neurons tend to have these properties, and therefore it is mainly these neurons that are captured by ERPs. Finally, speaking out loud is quite problematic in ERP studies because of the electrical noise produced both by muscles and by motor neurons, so almost all ERP language studies are limited to language perception (reading or listening).
脑磁图 (MEG) 可以被认为是提供与 ERP 相当的磁场。所有电流周围都有磁场。尽管脑电流周围的磁场非常弱,但极其灵敏的探测器 SQUID(超导量子干涉仪)可以捕捉到这些磁场的变化 - 只要测试室严密屏蔽来自计算机、电力线、过往火车等的磁干扰。大量 SQUID 可以装在头盔中,只需将头盔戴在受试者头上即可。然后受试者执行语言或其他认知任务,研究人员比较实验条件下的磁场。
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) can be thought of as providing the magnetic equivalent to ERPs. All electrical currents have a magnetic field around them. Although the magnetic fields around currents in the brain are very weak, extremely sensitive detectors called SQUIDs (Superconducting QUantum Interference Devices) can pick up changes in these fields – as long as the testing room is heavily shielded against magnetic interference from computers, power lines, passing trains, and the like. A large number of SQUIDs can be packed in a helmet, which is simply lowered on the subject’s head. The subject then performs language or other cognitive tasks, and the researcher compares the magnetic fields between experimental conditions.
与 ERP 一样,MEG 可以以非常高的时间分辨率(例如每毫秒)测量电生理脑活动。但是,与 ERP 相比,MEG 可以让人们以更高的可靠性定位脑活动源;尽管逆问题仍然存在,但磁场被颅骨扭曲的程度远小于电位。通过将此局部活动叠加在 MRI 获得的解剖图像上,人们可以看到哪些脑结构可能产生活动。因此,MEG 相当擅长为我们提供实时脑部电影的目标。然而,与 ERP 一样,它仅捕获脑部区域和脑部神经元的子集——尽管通常与 ERP 不同的神经元集,这使得这两种技术在某种程度上补充。
Like ERPs, MEG can measure electrophysiological brain activity at very high temporal resolutions, for example, every millisecond. However, MEG allows one to localize the source of brain activity with a somewhat higher degree of reliability than with ERPs; even though the inverse problem remains, the magnetic field is warped far less by the skull than are electrical potentials. By overlaying this localized activity on anatomical images obtained with MRI, one can see which brain structures are likely to be producing the activity. So, MEG is reasonably good at providing us with our goal of a real-time movie of the brain. Nevertheless, like ERPs, it only captures a subset of the brain regions and neurons in the brain – although generally a different set of neurons than ERP, making the two technologies somewhat complementary.
ERP 和 MEG 测量颅骨和头皮之外的电场和磁场,只能提供大脑内部神经元活动的部分和近似证据。然而,在非常特殊的情况下,人们可以直接测量大脑活动。严重癫痫患者有时可以通过手术切除癫痫组织(癫痫发作的根源)来治愈。外科医生需要找出组织的确切位置。为此,他/她通常会切除头皮、颅骨和大脑覆盖物,覆盖被认为存在癫痫组织的大脑部分。然后在皮质表面植入电极网格。还可以将非常精细的探针插入大脑深处,更靠近疑似癫痫组织的地方。这些深度探针上布满了电极,可以拾取和区分数百个细胞的信号。(一些最近开发的探针甚至可以区分单个细胞的放电!)然后再次覆盖大脑,电极线小心地穿过包扎的头皮,延伸到记录大脑活动的计算机。患者可以舒适地躺在床上进行录音,录音过程可能持续几天甚至更长时间。在此期间,癫痫发作的信号可用于定位其来源(就像从几个监听站定位地震震中一样),以便随后通过手术切除,同时保持其他组织完好无损。
ERPs and MEG measure electrical and magnetic fields outside the skull and scalp, giving only partial and approximate evidence of neuronal activity within the brain itself. However, in very special circumstances one can measure brain activity directly. Patients with severe epilepsy can sometimes be cured by surgical removal of the epileptic tissue (the source of epileptic seizures). The surgeon needs to find out exactly where the tissue is. To do this, he/she typically removes the scalp, skull, and brain coverings over the portion of the brain where the epileptic tissue is thought to lie. Then a grid of electrodes is implanted on the surface of the cortex. Very fine probes can also be inserted deep into the brain, closer to the suspected epileptic tissue. These depth probes are studded with electrodes that can pick up and distinguish signals from a few hundred cells. (Some recently developed probes can even distinguish the firing of single cells!) Then the brain is covered up again, with the electrode wires passed carefully through the bandaged scalp, and extending to computers that record brain activity. The patient can lie comfortably in bed during recording, which can last several days or more. Signals from epileptic seizures during this time are used to localize their source (much like localizing an earthquake epicenter from several listening stations), allowing its subsequent surgical removal while leaving other tissue intact.
在植入电极的同时,外科医生还可以进行实验,以确定患者大脑中语言、运动和其他重要功能的特定区域,以便在手术中避开这些区域。在这些实验中,患者被分配了各种任务来探测这些功能。在患者执行任务时,不仅可以记录来自各个电极的活动,还可以刺激任何一对电极之间的脑组织(通过在它们之间传递小电流)。通常,这种刺激会导致暂时性病变,损害依赖于该特定组织的功能。然而,刺激实际上也可以触发行为,例如不自觉的言语。在任一情况下,通过刺激网格或深度探测器上的不同电极,并查看哪些电极会损害或触发特定功能,研究人员可以绘制大脑中的功能图。
While the electrodes are implanted, the surgeon can also perform experiments that identify the particular brain areas that underlie language, motor, and other critical functions in the patient, so that these areas can be avoided during surgery. In these experiments, the patient is given various tasks probing these functions. While the patient performs a task, one can not only record activity from the various electrodes, but also stimulate the brain tissue between any pair of electrodes (by passing a small current between them). Typically this stimulation results in a temporary lesion, impairing the functions that depend on that particular tissue. However, stimulation can also actually trigger behaviors, such as involuntary speech. In either case, by stimulating different electrodes on the grid or in the depth probes, and seeing which ones impair or trigger a particular function, the researcher can map the function in the brain.
除了直接帮助患者之外,这些实验还可以更普遍地告诉我们语言和其他认知功能在大脑中的组织方式。由于探测器直接放置在大脑上或大脑中,因此这种技术可以实现出色的 定位,甚至细胞水平,以及亚毫秒时间分辨率。此外,该技术的独特之处在于既可以进行局部记录,又可以进行直接刺激。
In addition to helping the patient directly, these experiments can tell us more generally how language and other cognitive functions are organized in the brain. Because the detectors are placed directly on or in the brain, this technique allows for excellent localization, even to the cellular level, as well as sub-millisecond temporal resolution. Additionally, the technique is unique in allowing for both localized recording and direct stimulation.
然而,该方法也存在一些缺点。首先,在将结果推广到正常大脑时必须谨慎,因为癫痫反映了神经异常,并可能导致各种形式的补偿。此外,直接脑记录和刺激研究只能定位每个患者电极附近的功能,而大部分脑活动无法测量。因此,重要的是用全局映射技术补充和交叉验证直接脑记录和刺激,例如功能磁共振成像。
However, the method also has certain drawbacks. First, one must be cautious in generalizing the results to normal brains, since the epilepsy reflects neural abnormalities and may have led to various forms of compensation. Additionally, direct brain recording and stimulation studies can only localize functions near the electrodes that are in place in each patient, leaving most of the brain’s activity unmeasured. Thus it is important to complement and cross-validate direct brain recording and stimulation with global mapping techniques such as fMRI.
如果您曾经想使用遥控器来改变家人和朋友的行为,那么经颅磁刺激 (TMS) 可能会让您感兴趣。这种方法允许研究人员刺激大脑而无需进行手术。该技术利用颅骨允许磁场相对自由地通过这一事实(参见上文的 MEG)。它的工作原理是使用线圈中的强电流来产生强度快速上升和下降的磁场,从而诱导对大脑的电刺激。通过将这些磁场引导到大脑中的特定位置,研究人员可以选择性地刺激区域。
If you’ve ever wanted to use a remote control to modify the behavior of your family and friends, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) may interest you. This method allows researchers to stimulate the brain without the need to perform surgery. The technique takes advantage of the fact that the skull allows magnetic fields to pass through relatively freely (see MEG, above). It works by using a powerful electric current in a coil of wire to generate a magnetic field that rapidly rises and falls in strength, which in turn induces electrical stimulation of the brain. By directing these magnetic fields to specific locations in the brain, the researcher can stimulate regions selectively.
与直接刺激大脑一样,这可能会导致行为开启或关闭。例如,针对运动皮层的 TMS 可能会导致您抽动拇指。此外,由于 TMS 还可以抑制行为,它具有前所未有的能力,可以在原本健康的受试者身上产生暂时的“病变”——即神经功能障碍。TMS 产生的功能紊乱可能仅限于大脑相对较小的区域(大约 1.0 到 1.5 平方厘米),从而限制了可能受到影响的不同结构的数量。此外,由于干扰是暂时的(通常仅持续约 100 毫秒),因此可以在刺激之前和之后对受试者进行测试,并且不太可能发生对干扰功能的补偿。
As with direct brain stimulation, this may result in turning behaviors either on or off. For example, TMS directed at your motor cortex can cause you to twitch your thumb. Moreover, because TMS can also inhibit behaviors, it offers the unprecedented ability to produce temporary “lesions” – i.e. neuronal dysfunction – in otherwise healthy subjects. The disrupted function produced by TMS can be limited to relatively small areas of the brain (roughly 1.0 to 1.5 square centimeters), restricting the number of different structures that are likely to be affected. Moreover, because the disruption is temporary (generally lasting only about 100 milliseconds), subjects can be tested both before and after stimulation, and compensation for the disrupted function is very unlikely to occur.
然而,TMS 的作用范围有限。并非所有脑部结构都能同等程度地刺激,刺激范围主要局限于相对靠近脑表面、靠近头骨的皮质区域。TMS 作用持续时间短,虽然有利于补偿和受试者的健康,但也有一定的局限性,因为对受损功能的测量需要与磁场的应用仔细同步。尽管如此,TMS 提供了一种相对非侵入性的方法来评估结构-功能对应关系,并测试定位、可分离性和领域特异性问题。
However, there are limitations to what can be achieved with TMS. Not all structures in the brain are equally accessible, and stimulation is largely limited to cortical regions that are relatively near the surface of the brain, close to the skull. The short duration of the effects of TMS, while advantageous with respect to compensation and the subjects’ well-being, is also somewhat limiting, as measurements of the disrupted functions need to be carefully synchronized with the application of the magnetic field. Nevertheless, TMS offers a relatively noninvasive method by which to assess structure–function correspondences, and to test for questions of localization, separability, and domain-specificity.
最后,通过反复施加 TMS 脉冲 (rTMS),可以实现持续时间更长的效果。这些长期效果不仅有助于最大限度地减少同步问题,还有助于治疗大脑和行为障碍。然而,rTMS 也比单脉冲 TMS 更危险,并且已导致少数受试者癫痫发作。这些危险可以通过以下方法减轻严格遵守标准安全措施,但使用 rTMS 仍然需要比使用的经颅磁共振。
Finally, by repeatedly applying TMS pulses (rTMS), effects of much longer duration can be achieved. These longer-term effects are useful not only for minimizing the problem of synchronization, but also for the therapeutic intervention of brain and behavioral disorders. However, rTMS is also more dangerous than single-pulse TMS, and has caused epileptic seizures in a small number of subjects. These dangers can be mitigated by the strict adherence to standard safety measures, but the use of rTMS nevertheless requires more care than the use of TMS.
通过使用上一节中描述的方法,以及用于识别语言的生物学、心理学和表征基础的各种其他技术,研究人员在回答上述问题方面取得了重大进展。在这里,我们将介绍一些解决这些问题的生物学证据,以及为解释这些证据而提出的各种理论解释。我们将把讨论限制在母语(第一语言)上,并主要集中于成年人的数据。因此,当您阅读本节的其余部分时,请记住,我们正在讨论的是当您使用母语时您的大脑可能在做什么——尽管重要的是要记住,个体可能会有所不同。
Using the methods described in the previous section, together with various other techniques for identifying the biological, psychological, and representational bases of language, researchers have made substantial progress in answering the questions discussed above. Here we will go over some of the biological evidence that addresses these questions, and various theoretical explanations that have been proposed to account for this evidence. We will restrict our discussion to native (first) language, and will concentrate primarily on data from adults. So as you read the rest of this section, keep in mind that we are talking about what your brain is probably doing as you use your native language – although it is important to keep in mind that individuals can and do differ.
在下文中,我们将介绍与心理词汇、概念语义学、音系学、句法学和形态学的生物认知相关的证据和解释。语言其他方面的生物学研究较少,如韵律和组合语义学,本文不作详细介绍。下文提到的所有解剖结构都可以在本章前面介绍的大脑图中找到(图 7.1、7.2、7.4、7.5和7.6 )。相关的侧向区域也直接显示在图 7.9中(见阴影区域 )。
In the following text we cover evidence and explanations related to the biocognition of the mental lexicon, conceptual-semantics, phonology, syntax, and morphology. The biology of other aspects of language, such as prosody and compositional semantics, is less well studied, and is not addressed in much detail here. All anatomical structures referred to below can be found in the brain figures presented earlier in the chapter (Figures 7.1, 7.2, 7.4, 7.5, and 7.6). Relevant lateral regions are also directly indicated in Figure 7.9 (see shaded area).
我们可以提出各种有关词语及其声音和意义的生物学问题。大脑的哪些部分以及哪些神经递质和激素帮助我们理解、学习、储存和检索词语?不同的生物学基础是否构成了形成词语(也许更广泛地说是音系学)的声音模式和词语意义(也许更广泛地说是概念语义学)的基础?不同类型的词语(如名词或动词)或具有不同含义的词语是否依赖于不同的神经基础?基因在词汇习得和词语使用中发挥作用吗?词语的生物学基础是否仅适用于词语,还是也构成了其他事物(如记忆事实)的基础?这些问题的答案是否有助于我们理解其他问题,如儿童如何习得词语、词汇如何构造、计算机如何学习词语、词语如何在几个世纪中发生变化,或者哪些治疗方法可以帮助脑损伤患者或患有发育障碍的儿童(他们有词汇障碍)?在这里我们讨论了一些开始回答这些问题的研究。
We can ask all kinds of questions about the biology of words, and of their sounds and meanings. What parts of the brain, and what neurotransmitters and hormones, help us understand, learn, store, and retrieve words? Do different biological substrates underlie the sound patterns that form words (and perhaps phonology more generally) on the one hand, and word meanings (and perhaps conceptual-semantics more generally) on the other? Do different types of words, such as nouns or verbs, or words with different meanings, depend on different neural substrates? Do genes play a role in vocabulary acquisition and the use of words? And are the biological underpinnings of words only for words, or do they also underlie other things you do, such as memorizing facts? And can the answers to any of these questions help us understand other problems, such as how children acquire words, how the lexicon is structured, how computers might learn words, how words change over the centuries, or what therapeutic approaches can help brain-damaged patients, or children with developmental disorders, who have lexical impairments? Here we discuss research that begins to answer some of these questions.
词汇知识的使用在很大程度上取决于颞叶,主要但不限于左半球。急性病变(例如中风)造成的局部脑损伤长期以来一直表明颞叶皮层发挥着重要作用。患有退行性疾病的患者,其损伤相对局限于颞叶,包括 阿尔茨海默病和语义性痴呆的患者也有严重的词汇缺陷。大量 PET 和 fMRI 研究发现,在涉及词形或含义,甚至是词的特定语法知识(如论元结构)的任务中,颞叶区域会被激活。颞叶激活出现在接受性语言(听力或阅读)和表达性语言(说话)的词汇任务中,比如当受试者命名物体的图片时。在 ERP 研究中,词汇因素的操纵会影响“N400”成分,该成分与颞叶结构有关。例如,较低频率的词(我们较少听到或看到的词,例如newt与frog相比)和更具体的词(例如raccoon与country相比)会生成较大的 N400。同样,直接脑记录和脑磁图显示词汇处理依赖于不同颞叶区域的神经活动(Halgren等人,2002 年;Nobre等人,1994 年)。最近的一项研究报告称,直接刺激颞叶区域会损害物体或动作的命名能力(Corina等人,2005 年)。此外,重复刺激(rTMS)韦尼克区的激活实际上可以加快图片命名任务的完成速度(Mottaghy等人,1999 年)。
The use of lexical knowledge depends heavily on the temporal lobes, mainly but not only in the left hemisphere. Focal brain damage from acute lesions (e.g. due to strokes) has long pointed to this important role of temporal cortex. Patients whose damage is relatively restricted to the temporal lobes from degenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s disease and semantic dementia, also have severe lexical deficits. Numerous PET and fMRI studies have found activation in temporal-lobe regions during tasks that involve word forms or meanings, or even word-specific grammatical knowledge such as argument structure. Temporal-lobe activation is observed in lexical tasks both in receptive language (listening or reading) and in expressive language (speaking), such as when subjects name pictures of objects. In ERP studies, manipulations of lexical factors affect the “N400” component, which has been tied to temporal-lobe structures. For example, larger N400s are generated by lower-frequency words (those we’ve heard or seen less often, such as newt as compared to frog) and words that are more concrete (e.g. raccoon as compared to country). Similarly, direct brain recordings and MEG have shown that lexical processing depends on neural activity in various temporal lobe regions (Halgren et al. 2002; Nobre et al. 1994). A more recent study reported that directly stimulating temporal-lobe areas impairs the naming of objects or actions (Corina et al. 2005). Moreover, the repetitive stimulation (rTMS) of Wernicke’s area can actually speed up performance in a picture-naming task (Mottaghy et al. 1999).
不同的词汇相关功能取决于颞叶内的不同结构。语音词形(构成单词声音模式的音素串)的使用,以及更普遍的语音和/或语音处理,在很大程度上依赖于中后颞上皮层(即中后 BA 22;见图7.9)。该区域与两个半球都有关。尽管人们普遍认为左半球在语音处理的所有方面都占主导地位,但许多研究表明,半球的主导地位会随着所执行的任务而变化。一些证据表明,虽然左半球在语音生成中占主导地位,但在听觉理解过程中,左、右颞上区都会参与其中——尽管两侧似乎发挥着不同的作用。例如,左侧可能检测到快速的声学变化,如音素共振峰中发现的变化,而右侧可能对检测缓慢的变化更重要,如韵律中发生的变化(Hickok 和 Poeppel 2004)。
Different lexically related functions depend on different structures within the temporal lobes. The use of phonological word forms (the strings of phonemes that constitute the sound patterns of words), and perhaps phonological and/or phonetic processing more generally, relies heavily on mid-to-posterior superior temporal cortex (i.e. mid-to-posterior BA 22; see Figure 7.9). This region has been implicated in both hemispheres. Although it is commonly assumed that the left hemisphere is dominant for all aspects of phonological processing, a number of studies have shown that hemispheric dominance varies with the task being performed. Some evidence suggests that while the left hemisphere is dominant for phonological processing in speech production, during auditory comprehension both left and right superior temporal regions are involved – although the two sides seem to play somewhat different roles. For example, the left side might detect rapid acoustic changes such as those found in formants of phonemes, whereas the right may be more important for detecting slow changes, like those that occur in prosody (Hickok and Poeppel 2004).
使用概念语义知识,以及可能存储的非音系词汇信息在词汇条目中,似乎由与词形和音系基础颞上区截然不同的皮质区域支持。这些概念/词汇区域包括位于词形/音系区域前方和下方的颞叶皮质,左侧的作用略大于右侧。在血液动力学神经影像学研究中,该皮质区域通过处理真实单词而被双侧激活,但尤其是在左侧,而词形和音系区域则由伪词(如blick )激活,其音系词形没有任何含义。
The use of conceptual-semantic knowledge, and possibly of nonphonological lexical information stored in lexical entries, seems to be supported by cortical areas largely distinct from the superior temporal region that underlies word forms and phonology. These conceptual/lexical areas include temporal cortex in front of and below the word-form/phonology region, with a somewhat greater role on the left than the right side. In hemodynamic neuroimaging studies, this cortical area is activated bilaterally, but especially on the left, by processing real words, whereas the region for word forms and phonology is engaged by pseudo-words like blick, whose phonological word forms are not accompanied by any meanings.
颞叶并不是唯一在词汇相关知识和处理中发挥作用的大脑结构。有证据表明,词形和音韵不仅取决于颞上皮层的中后部,还取决于附近的缘上回皮层(BA 40),以及 BA 6 和 BA 44 边界附近的区域,该区域似乎在音韵中发挥作用工作记忆(在脑海中积极地保存和复习信息,比如在查找电话号码之后和拨打电话之前对电话号码进行复习)。
The temporal lobes are not the only brain structures that play a role in lexically related knowledge and processing. Evidence suggests that word forms and phonology depend not just on mid-to-posterior superior temporal cortex, but also on nearby cortex in the supramarginal gyrus (BA 40), as well as an area near the boundary of BA 6 and BA 44 that seems to play a role in phonological working memory (holding and rehearsing information actively in mind, such as one might do with a phone number after looking it up and before dialing it).
小脑的右半球(与大脑的左半球而不是右半球紧密相连)似乎是词汇知识搜索的基础。相反,检索或选择这些知识则取决于基底神经节和下额叶部分回——即布罗卡区和 BA 47。这些功能作用的证据不仅来自神经影像学研究,也来自病变研究。例如,下额叶区域急性病变的个体和患有帕金森病患者(额叶和基底神经节均退化)通常存在找词困难,但识别单词的困难较少。此外,患有特定语言障碍患者的布罗卡区异常,他们很难回忆起单词,但词汇知识却大体上保留了下来(Ullman 和 Pierpont 2005)。有趣的是,在下额叶区域内,BA 44 可能在选择竞争词汇方面发挥作用,而更靠前/腹侧的区域(BA 45/47)是检索的基础(Thompson-Schill等人1997 )。事实上,BA 45/47 可能更广泛地参与检索和维护词汇和语义表征作为工作记忆的一部分。最后,更靠前的额叶区域,即额极(在 BA 10 中),可以验证或监控检索到的项目。
The right hemisphere of the cerebellum (which is closely connected to the left rather than the right hemisphere of the cerebrum) seems to underlie searching for lexical knowledge. In contrast, retrieving or selecting this knowledge instead depends on the basal ganglia and portions of the inferior frontal gyrus – i.e. Broca’s area and BA 47. Evidence for these functional roles comes not only from neuroimaging studies, but also from lesion studies. For example, individuals with acute lesions to inferior frontal regions and patients with Parkinson’s disease (who have both frontal and basal ganglia degeneration) generally have word-finding trouble, but have less difficulty in recognizing words. Moreover, children with Specific Language Impairment, in which Broca’s area is abnormal, have trouble recalling words but are largely spared in their lexical knowledge (Ullman and Pierpont 2005). Interestingly, within the inferior frontal region, BA 44 may play a role in selecting competing lexical alternatives, while the more anterior/ventral area (BA 45/47) underlies their retrieval (Thompson-Schill et al. 1997). BA 45/47 may in fact be involved more broadly in retrieving and maintaining lexical and semantic representations as part of working memory. Finally, a much more anterior frontal region, the frontal pole (in BA 10), may verify or monitor retrieved items.
现在,当你读到“长颈鹿”和“螺丝刀”这两个词时,你大脑的特定区域就会亮起来——事实上,这两个词激活了大脑的不同区域。有证据表明,理解不同概念类别的单词取决于不同的大脑结构网络。具体来说,单词含义取决于与这些含义相关的感觉或运动功能区域相邻的皮质。这些相同的皮质区域也会被与相同概念相关的非语言任务激活,例如物体识别甚至心理意象。例如,表示具有强烈视觉属性(如形状或颜色)的物品的单词涉及视觉皮层附近与这些属性有关的颞枕区域。事实上,这些区域的特定子区域,甚至单个神经元,可能部分专门用于不同类型的类别,在这些类别中,视觉形式很重要,例如动物(例如长颈鹿)、面孔和房屋。类似地,靠近与运动知觉有关的区域的后外侧颞叶区域在命名工具(如螺丝刀)、动作或动词以及简单地感知或记住这些物品时被激活。事实上,该区域受损的患者或该区域直接接受脑刺激的受试者在命名这些类型的物品时特别困难。有趣的是,在这个后颞叶区域内,颞上沟周围的区域可能对具有生物运动的物品(如动物或人类)发挥作用,而颞中皮层中该区域正下方的区域可能对具有非生物运动的物品(如工具)更重要。最后,命名工具(例如再次是螺丝刀!)和动作会激活额叶运动区域,该区域也参与实际运动以及运动的心理意象。
Right now, as you are reading the words “giraffe” and “screwdriver,” specific parts of your brain are lighting up – and in fact different areas are being activated by these two words. Evidence suggests that understanding words from different conceptual categories depends on different networks of brain structures. Specifically, word meanings depend on cortex adjacent to those areas that underlie the sensory or motor functions that are linked to these meanings. These same cortical regions are also activated by nonlinguistic tasks, such as object recognition or even mental imagery, related to the same concepts. For example, words denoting items with strong visual attributes such as form or color involve temporal-occipital areas involved in these attributes near visual cortex. In fact, specific subregions of these areas, and even individual neurons, may be partly specialized for different types of categories in which visual form is important, such as animals (e.g. giraffes), faces, and houses. Similarly, a posterior lateral temporal region near an area implicated in motion perception are activated by naming tools (such as screwdrivers), actions or verbs, as well as simply perceiving or remembering these items. In fact, patients with damage to this region, or subjects with direct brain stimulation in this region, have particular trouble naming these types of items. Interestingly, within this posterior temporal region, an area around the superior temporal sulcus may play a role for items with biological motion, such as animals or humans, whereas an area just below it in middle temporal cortex may be more important for items with nonbiological motion, such as tools. Finally, naming tools (e.g. screwdrivers again!) and actions activates frontal motor regions that are also involved in actual movement, as well as in the mental imagery of movement.
名词和动词之间似乎存在神经解剖学差异。动词与左额叶皮质密切相关,而名词则更多地依赖于左颞叶区域。例如,额叶受损的患者往往更难说出动词,而左颞叶受损则相反。这种二分法的原因尚不清楚,可能涉及一个或多个因素,包括名词和动词之间的词汇、概念语义和语法差异。词汇语法假说认为,大脑中的词汇知识在解剖学上是根据名词和动词等语法词类组织的。其他解释则采取了不同的策略。语义假说认为,分离实际上反映了名词和动词的概念语义差异,而不是词类区别本身。例如,分离可能反映了动词倾向于表示动作(与额叶运动区域相关;见上文),而名词通常表示可视觉化的物体(与颞枕叶区域相关;见上文)。或者,形态句法假设表明,动词和名词对涉及额叶结构的形态句法过程的依赖程度不同。尚待观察的是,这些观点中的哪一个(单独或组合)能最好地解释数据,或者是否需要新的解释。
A neuroanatomical difference appears to exist between nouns and verbs. Whereas verbs are strongly linked to left frontal cortex, nouns depend more on left temporal regions. For example, patients with frontal lesions often have more difficulty producing verbs, whereas the opposite holds for left temporal damage. The reasons for this dichotomy are not yet clear, and may involve one or more factors, including lexical, conceptual-semantic, and grammatical differences between nouns and verbs. The lexical–grammatical hypothesis argues that lexical knowledge in the brain is organized anatomically according to grammatical word category, such as noun and verb. Other explanations have taken a different tack. Semantic hypotheses suggest that the dissociations actually reflect differences in the conceptual-semantics of nouns and verbs rather than the word category distinction itself. For example, the dissociation may reflect the fact that verbs tend to represent actions (which are associated with frontal motor regions; see above), whereas nouns often represent visualizable objects (which are associated with temporal-occipital regions; see above). Alternatively, morphosyntactic hypotheses suggest that verbs and nouns differentially depend on morphosyntactic processes that involve frontal lobe structures. It remains to be seen which of these perspectives (alone or in combination) will best explain the data, or whether a new explanation will be necessary.
词汇处理的时空动态在词汇生成中得到了最好的研究。人们汇集了来自许多不同方法的证据来理解这一过程,包括来自病变研究、SPECT、PET、fMRI、ERP、MEG、直接脑记录和刺激、TMS 和行为(心理语言学)反应时间分析的数据。虽然没有一种方法可以单独提供如此完整的画面,但各种方法已经协同结合起来,创造了一部关于词汇生成时空动态的电影——尽管有些场景要么失焦,要么完全缺失。
The spatiotemporal dynamics of lexical processing have been best studied in word production. Evidence from many different methods has been brought together to understand this process, including data from lesion studies, SPECT, PET, fMRI, ERPs, MEG, direct brain recording and stimulation, TMS, and behavioral (psycholinguistic) response time analysis. Whereas no one method on its own could have provided so complete a picture, the various methods have been synergistically combined to create a movie of the spatiotemporal dynamics of word production – albeit with some scenes either out of focus or still missing completely.
尽管研究人员已经研究了许多不同的单词生成实验任务的时空动态,但这里我们关注的是图片命名。在这个任务中,受试者被要求大声说出每张图片中显示的物体的名称。即使是这样一个看似简单的任务也需要多个大脑结构随着时间的推移而协调活动。此外,这些不同的子过程发生得非常快:平均而言,实际开始说出图片的名称只需要大约 600 毫秒,因此每个子过程都必须在这段时间内发生。
Although researchers have studied the spatiotemporal dynamics of a number of different experimental tasks of word production, here we focus on picture naming. In this task, subjects are asked to simply name out loud the object shown in each picture. Even such an apparently simple task requires the coordinated activity of multiple brain structures over time. Moreover, these various subprocesses take place very quickly: on average, it takes only about 600 milliseconds to actually start saying the name of a picture, so each subprocess must take place within that timeframe.
词语产生的初始阶段似乎涉及选择要表达的概念。这个过程取决于枕叶和腹侧颞叶区域,通常在呈现图片后约 175 毫秒内完成。一旦选择了概念,似乎就会从记忆中检索出适合该概念的词汇条目。词汇条目指定单词的语法类别(例如名词),以及其他句法信息,例如语法性别(例如,法语等语言中的阴性或阳性)。这个过程取决于左中颞回的中央区域,大约发生在 175 到 250 毫秒之间。此时,检索出语音词形,提供发音所需的信息。这个过程在很大程度上取决于韦尼克区域,发生时间大约在图片显示后 250 到 330 毫秒之间。
The initial stage of word production seems to involve the selection of the concept that will be expressed. This process depends on occipital and ventral temporal regions and is typically completed within about 175 milliseconds after the picture is presented. Once the concept has been selected, an appropriate lexical entry for the concept seems to be retrieved from memory. The lexical entry specifies the word’s grammatical category (e.g. noun), as well as other syntactic information, such as grammatical gender (for example, feminine or masculine in languages like French). This process depends on a central region of the left middle temporal gyrus, and takes place roughly between 175 and 250 milliseconds. At this point, the phonological word form is retrieved, providing the information necessary to pronounce the word. This process depends largely on Wernicke’s area, and takes place roughly between 250 and 330 milliseconds after the picture was shown.
在下一个阶段,有证据表明,单词的语音信息被传递到布罗卡区,在这里,单词中的声音(即使跨越不同的词素)被汇集在一起,并包含有关单词重音模式和音节结构的信息。这似乎发生在大约 330 到 455 毫秒之间。例如,产生双音节复数形式horses似乎涉及词干horse和词干 s的选择和组合。复数词缀 - s。完成此步骤后,语音编码将抽象的语音信息转换为发音单词所需的正确肌肉运动序列。这个最后的过程大约需要 145 毫秒(即在显示图片后约 600 毫秒结束),也取决于布罗卡区,额叶运动区和小脑。
At the next stage, evidence suggests that the word’s phonological information is relayed to Broca’s area, where the sounds in the word – even across different morphemes – are brought together with each other and with information about the word’s stress pattern and syllable structure. This seems to take place from about 330 to 455 milliseconds. For example, producing the bisyllabic plural form horses seems to involve the selection and combination of the stem horse and the plural affix -s. Once this step is complete, phonetic encoding turns the abstract phonological information into the proper sequence of muscle movements necessary to articulate the word. This final process, which takes about another 145 milliseconds (i.e. ending at about 600 milliseconds after the picture was shown), also depends on Broca’s area, with additional possible contributions from frontal motor regions and the cerebellum.
上述数据主要从马克斯·普朗克心理语言学研究所的 Willem Levelt 及其同事提出的解释模型的角度来呈现。虽然也有人提出了其他的词语生成模型,但所有这些模型似乎都或多或少地同意上述基本阶段。它们在某些细节上有所不同,或者在更大的连续与连续问题上有所不同。交互过程。虽然 Levelt 模型描述的是连续阶段(即一系列步骤),但其他模型,例如由Gary Dell 建议在子流程之间增加互动性。根据 Dell 的说法,不同阶段的激活在时间上是重叠的,并且反馈可以在子流程之间进行。 他们。
The data described above are presented largely from the perspective of an explanatory model proposed by Willem Levelt and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Although other models of word production have also been proposed, all seem to be more or less in agreement on the basic stages laid out above. They differ either in some of their specifics, or with respect to the larger issue of serial versus interactive processes. Whereas Levelt’s model describes serial stages (i.e. a sequence of steps), other models, such as that proposed by Gary Dell, suggest more interactivity between the subprocesses. According to Dell, activation in the different stages overlaps in time, and feedback is possible between them.
有证据表明,单词学习依赖于内侧颞叶结构,包括海马体。神经影像学研究表明,当人们学习单词时,这些区域的激活度会增加(Breitenstein等人,2005 年)。患者患有前行性遗忘症(与海马体和其他内侧颞叶结构受损有关)的人,在学习新词形式或含义方面会受到影响。例如,研究得很好的遗忘症患者HM 的大部分内侧颞叶结构已通过手术从两个半球切除,因此在学习新词形式和概念知识方面存在严重缺陷。因此,他似乎不了解nerd、granola或bikini等词汇,这些词汇是他在 1953 年接受手术后才进入英语的(Postle and Corkin 1998)。
Evidence suggests that word learning depends on medial temporal lobe structures, including the hippocampus. Neuroimaging studies show activation increases in these regions while people are learning words (Breitenstein et al. 2005). Patients with anterograde amnesia, which is associated with damage to the hippocampus and other medial temporal lobe structures, are impaired in learning new word forms or meanings. For example, the well-studied amnesic patient H.M., most of whose medial temporal lobe structures were surgically removed from both hemispheres, has profound deficits in learning new word forms and conceptual knowledge. Thus he does not appear to have any knowledge of words like nerd, granola, or bikini that came into the English language after his surgery in 1953 (Postle and Corkin 1998).
神经递质乙酰胆碱在海马功能中起着重要作用,似乎与词汇学习有关。例如,阻断乙酰胆碱的药物东莨菪碱会削弱人们记忆单词形式的能力,同时保持工作记忆和先前学习的词汇语义知识的处理相对完整。患有阿尔茨海默病会导致海马体中乙酰胆碱活性的严重丧失,患者在学习新词形式和含义方面会受到很大影响;给这些患者服用胆碱酯酶抑制剂,可以增加突触中的乙酰胆碱含量,从而提高他们的学习能力。
The neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which plays an important role in hippocampal function, seems to be implicated in aspects of word learning. For example, the drug scopolamine, which blocks acetylcholine, impairs one’s ability to memorize word forms, while leaving working memory and the processing of previously learned lexical-semantic knowledge relatively intact. Patients with Alzheimer’s disease, which involves a severe loss of acetylcholine activity in the hippocampus, are particularly impaired in learning new word forms and meanings; and giving these patients cholinesterase inhibitors, which increase the amount of acetylcholine in synapses, improves these learning abilities.
词汇和概念语义知识的获取和处理方面也受到雌激素的调节。对于绝经后女性,雌激素疗法可提高她们记忆词形和生成某一类别单词列表的能力。神经影像学研究已将这种改善至少部分地与内侧颞叶结构联系起来。给男性注射雌激素也可以帮助他们完成这些任务(Miles等人,1998 年)。即使在绝经之前,女性在月经周期中雌激素水平高时比雌激素水平低时更能完成这些任务。最后,值得注意的是,这些雌激素效应至少可以部分地通过乙酰胆碱的作用来解释(Shughrue等人,2000 年)。
Aspects of the acquisition and processing of lexical and conceptual-semantic knowledge are also modulated by estrogen. In postmenopausal women, estrogen therapy improves the ability to remember word forms and to generate lists of words in a category. Neuroimaging studies have linked such improvements at least in part to medial temporal lobe structures. Giving estrogen to men can also help them at these tasks (Miles et al. 1998). Even prior to menopause, women are better at these tasks when they are at high estrogen levels in their menstrual cycle than at low levels. Finally, it is interesting to note that these estrogen effects may be at least partly explained via the action of acetylcholine (Shughrue et al. 2000).
显然,你使用的单词不是由基因决定的,而是需要学习的。然而,单词学习和单词使用的生物认知基础似乎确实受到遗传因素的影响。对儿童的双胞胎研究表明,词汇习得的各个方面(以儿童口语词汇量的大小来衡量)受到遗传因素的强烈影响。与许多遗传效应一样,遗传对词汇的影响随着孩子年龄的增长,词汇能力会变得越来越强。在收养研究中,接受性词汇和语言流畅性都受到遗传学的强烈影响。然而,需要指出的是,在所有这些研究中,儿童周围的环境也起着重要作用——不仅仅是基因。此外,目前还不清楚这些遗传影响在多大程度上可能特定于词汇能力。来自发育障碍的数据也表明词汇具有一定程度的遗传性。因此特定语言障碍具有重要的遗传基础,通常伴有词汇检索障碍,尽管患有这种障碍的儿童词汇知识通常相对较少。总体而言,证据表明,遗传(以及环境)因素对词汇习得和语言能力有重要影响。加工。
Obviously the words you use are not specified by your genes, but have to be learned. However, the biocognitive substrates of word learning, as well as of word use, do seem to be affected by genetic factors. Twin studies of children suggest that aspects of lexical acquisition, as measured by the size of children’s spoken vocabulary, are strongly influenced by genetic factors. As with many genetic effects, the influence of genetics on vocabulary becomes stronger as the child gets older. In adoption studies, both receptive vocabulary and verbal fluency have been shown to be strongly influenced by genetics. However, it is important to point out that in all of these studies, children’s surrounding environment plays an important role too – it’s not just in the genes. Moreover, it is not yet clear to what extent these genetic influences might be specific to lexical abilities. Data from developmental disorders also suggest some degree of lexical heritability. Thus Specific Language Impairment, which has an important genetic basis, is typically accompanied by impairments in lexical retrieval, though lexical knowledge in children with the disorder is generally relatively spared. Overall, the evidence suggests that genetic (as well as environmental) factors have an important influence on lexical acquisition and processing.
上文中我们已经看到,不同类型的词汇相关功能之间存在相当大的可分离性。有证据表明,颞叶区域对词形、词汇概念和抽象词汇知识有不同的处理方式;大脑结构也有所不同,包括下额叶、基底神经节和小脑负责词汇检索、选择和搜索;根据类别的感觉和运动属性,将不同概念类别的单词分成不同的皮质区域;额叶区域负责动词,颞叶区域负责名词(或某种类似的概念或语法区别);内侧颞叶结构负责词汇知识的获取,新皮质区域负责储存或处理学到的知识。所以,即使我们将注意力集中在词汇上,不同的语言功能之间似乎也存在相当大的可分离性。然而,这种可分离性并不意味着各种词汇功能背后的任何大脑结构都只与这些功能相关;也就是说,可分离性并不意味着领域特异性。
We have seen above that there is substantial separability among different types of lexically related functions. Evidence suggests the existence of different temporal-lobe regions for word forms versus lexical-conceptual and abstract lexical knowledge; distinct brain structures, including inferior frontal, basal ganglia and cerebellar, for lexical retrieval, selection, and search; separate cortical regions for words from different conceptual categories, based on the categories’ sensory and motor attributes; frontal regions for verbs versus temporal regions for nouns (or some sort of analogous conceptual or grammatical distinction); and medial temporal structures for the acquisition of lexical knowledge versus neocortical regions for the storage or processing of that knowledge after it has been learned. So, even when we restrict our focus to the lexicon, there appears to be substantial separability among different linguistic functions. However, this separability does not imply that any of the brain structures that underlie the various lexical functions are associated with only these functions; that is, separability does not imply domain-specificity.
原则上很难证明领域特异性。例如,人们可能会发现词汇处理和注意力之间存在双重分离,词汇处理和运动功能之间存在双重分离,词汇处理和……等等。我们如何才能用每项可能的任务测试每项可能的功能?毫不奇怪,几乎没有任何有力的证据表明词汇能力的生物认知基础是专门用于语言的。相反,越来越多的证据表明词汇和非语言概念语义功能之间存在生物认知关联,这表明这些功能依赖于共同的生物认知基础。例如,我们已经看到,来自给定概念类别的单词和利用相同概念的非语言任务会激活相同的神经基础。上面未审查的其他证据也支持词汇和概念语义功能的共同基础。例如,数据表明词汇习得的生物认知基础(如海马体、乙酰胆碱和雌激素)也是学习概念、事实、事件等信息的基础。例如,HM 和其他健忘症患者通常不仅无法记住新单词,而且无法记住新事实(例如苏联已不复存在)和亲身经历的事件(例如他五分钟前见过你)。这些发现和其他发现导致了这词汇记忆依赖于陈述性记忆的提议,陈述性记忆是大脑中学习和使用事实和事件知识的基础系统((见框 7.2)。
It is difficult in principle to demonstrate domain-specificity. For example, one might show double dissociations between lexical processing and attention, between lexical processing and motor function, between lexical processing and … the list goes on. How can we test every possible function, with every possible task? Not surprisingly, there is little if any good evidence that the biocognitive substrates of lexical abilities are dedicated to language. In contrast, there is increasing evidence for biocognitive associations between lexical and nonlinguistic conceptual-semantic functions, suggesting that these functions depend on common biocognitive substrates. For example, we have seen that the same neural substrates are activated by words from a given conceptual category and by nonlinguistic tasks that tap the same concepts. Other evidence not reviewed above also supports a common basis for lexical and conceptual-semantic functions. For example, data suggest that the biocognitive substrates of lexical acquisition – such as the hippocampus, acetylcholine, and estrogen – also underlie learning information about concepts, facts, events, and the like. For example, H.M. and other amnesics are typically impaired at remembering not only new words, but also new facts (e.g. that the Soviet Union does not exist any more) and personally experienced events (e.g. that he met you five minutes ago). These and other findings have led to the proposal that lexical memory depends on declarative memory, a brain system that underlies the learning and use of knowledge about facts and events (see Box 7.2).
陈述性/程序性理论的基本前提是语言依赖于两个经过深入研究的大脑记忆系统,这两个系统与动物和人类的非语言功能有关(Ullman 2001 , 2004)。陈述性记忆系统是学习、表示和使用关于事实和事件的知识的基础,例如椅子是用来坐的,或者你昨晚吃了馄饨。在这个系统中学习的知识至少部分是,但不是完全、明确——即,可供意识使用。海马体和其他内侧颞叶结构学习新的记忆,最终在很大程度上取决于新皮质区域,尤其是颞叶。雌激素可以增强陈述性记忆功能,或许是通过调节神经递质乙酰胆碱。
The basic premise of the Declarative/Procedural Theory is that language depends on two well-studied brain memory systems that have been implicated in nonlanguage functions in animals and humans (Ullman 2001, 2004). The declarative memory system underlies the learning, representation, and use of knowledge about facts and events, such as the fact that chairs are for sitting on, or that you had ravioli for dinner last night. The knowledge learned in this system is at least partly, but not completely, explicit – that is, available to conscious awareness. The hippocampus and other medial temporal structures learn new memories, which eventually depend largely on neocortical regions, particularly in the temporal lobes. Declarative memory function can be enhanced by estrogen, perhaps via the modulation of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.
程序记忆系统是隐性(无意识)学习新的和控制长期形成的运动和认知“技能”和“习惯”,尤其是那些涉及序列和规则的技能和习惯——例如骑自行车、飞钓或学习概率规则。该系统由一个相互连接的大脑结构网络组成,这些结构植根于额叶/基底神经节回路,包括 BA 44布罗卡区。神经递质多巴胺在程序学习方面起着特别重要的作用。例如,患有帕金森病患者由于基底神经节中多巴胺产生细胞的缺失,导致程序性学习困难。
The procedural memory system underlies the implicit (nonconscious) learning of new, and the control of long-established, motor and cognitive “skills” and “habits,” especially those involving sequences and rules – for example, riding a bicycle, fly-fishing, or learning probabilistic rules. The system is composed of a network of interconnected brain structures rooted in frontal/basal-ganglia circuits, including BA 44 in Broca’s area. The neurotransmitter dopamine plays a particularly important role in aspects of procedural learning. For example, patients with Parkinson’s disease, who suffer from a loss of dopamine-producing cells in the basal ganglia, have trouble with procedural learning.
根据陈述/程序理论,两种记忆系统在其非语言和语言功能中都发挥着类似的作用。陈述性记忆和程序性记忆之间的区别在很大程度上类似于词汇化知识和基于规则的语法构成之间的区别。陈述性记忆是所有特殊的词语特定知识的基础,包括词语的声音和含义,以及词语是否采用形态不规则的形式。程序性记忆系统支持语法规则的隐性习得,以及规则控制的复杂语言结构的顺序和层次计算。该系统在语法子域(包括句法和形态)中发挥着计算类似的作用(例如,在英语常规过去时态的构成中,walk + -ed)。在正文中,我们讨论了支持这些不同预测的不同证据来源。
According to the Declarative/Procedural Theory, each of the two memory systems plays analogous roles in its nonlinguistic and linguistic functions. The distinction between declarative and procedural memory largely parallels the distinction between lexicalized knowledge and rule-based grammatical composition. Declarative memory underlies all idiosyncratic word-specific knowledge, including the sounds and meanings of words, and whether a word takes a morphologically irregular form. The procedural memory system supports the implicit acquisition of grammar rules, and the rule-governed sequential and hierarchical computation of complex linguistic structures. This system plays computationally analogous roles across grammatical subdomains, including syntax and morphology (e.g. in the composition of English regular past tenses, walk + -ed). In the main text we discuss different sources of evidence that support these various predictions.
然而,复杂结构也可以在陈述性记忆中学习和处理;例如,它们可以作为块存储(例如,走)。此类结构对一个或另一个记忆系统的依赖程度可能取决于许多因素,包括两个系统中哪一个更适合学习和处理。例如,陈述性记忆较好或程序性记忆较差的个人或群体应该更多地依赖陈述性记忆,而较少依赖程序性记忆。事实上,有证据表明,与男性相比,女性在陈述性记忆方面有优势(可能是由于她们雌激素水平较高),在处理复杂结构时比男性更依赖陈述性记忆(Ullman等人,2008 年)。患有特定语言障碍、FOXP2突变、或自闭症,他们似乎都存在程序性记忆缺陷(Ullman 和 Pierpont 2005;Walenski等人2006 ),似乎比典型发育中的儿童更依赖于复杂形式的陈述性记忆 个人。
However, complex structures can also be learned and processed in declarative memory; for example, they can be stored as chunks (e.g. walked). The extent to which such structures will depend on one or the other memory system likely depends on many factors, including which of the two systems is more available for learning and processing. For example, individuals or groups with better declarative memory or worse procedural memory should depend more on declarative and less on procedural memory. Indeed, evidence suggests that women, who show declarative memory advantages as compared to men (possibly due to their higher levels of estrogen), rely more on declarative memory than do men when processing complex structures (Ullman et al. 2008). And children and adults with Specific Language Impairment, FOXP2 mutations, or autism, all of whom appear to have procedural memory deficits (Ullman and Pierpont 2005; Walenski et al. 2006), seem to depend more on declarative memory for complex forms than do typically developing individuals.
句法的生物认知仍然不如词汇、概念语义学或音系学那么深入。考虑到特定的 句法的复杂性。然而,迄今为止的证据已经开始阐明各种问题,包括句法的功能神经解剖学、句法处理的时空动态以及这种语言功能的生物认知可分离性和领域特异性。
The biocognition of syntax is still less well understood than that of the lexicon, conceptual-semantics, or phonology. This is perhaps not surprising, given the particular complexity of syntax. Nevertheless, the evidence thus far has begun to shed light on a variety of questions, including the functional neuroanatomy of syntax, the spatiotemporal dynamics of syntactic processing, and the biocognitive separability and domain-specificity of this linguistic function.
第一的的总之,布罗卡区在句法处理中显然起着重要作用。布罗卡区不仅包括布罗卡区本身(BA 44 和 BA 45),还包括向下到 BA 47 和向后到额岛叶。许多神经影像学研究发现,在接受性语言任务中,涉及句法处理时,该区域内会出现激活。例如,在早期的英语句子 PET 研究中,句法复杂的句子(“中心嵌入”句子,如孩子洒出的果汁弄脏了地毯)在 BA 44 中产生的激活要多于复杂程度较低的句子(“右分支”句子,如孩子洒出的果汁弄脏了地毯)(Stromswold等人,1996 )。布罗卡区也与表达性语言有关。在一项针对德语的神经影像学研究中,受试者在说出句子时,BA 44 和额岛叶的激活程度高于说出短语时,而说出短语时,BA 44 和额岛叶的激活程度高于说出简单的单词列表时(Indefrey等人,2004 年)。也就是说,句法越复杂,激活程度越高(图 7.10)。
First of all, an area called Broca’s region clearly plays an important role in syntactic processing. Broca’s region is taken to encompass not only Broca’s area itself (BA 44 and BA 45), but also down to include BA 47 and back to include the frontal operculum. Numerous neuroimaging studies have found activation within this region during receptive language tasks engaging syntactic processing. For example, in an early PET study of English sentences, syntactically complex sentences (“center-embedded” sentences like The juice that the child spilled stained the rug) yielded more activation in BA 44 than less complex sentences (“right-branching” sentences like The child spilled the juice that stained the rug) (Stromswold et al. 1996). Broca’s region is also implicated in expressive language. In a neuroimaging investigation of German, subjects showed more activation in BA 44 and the frontal operculum when they produced sentences than phrases, which in turn yielded more activation than simple word lists (Indefrey et al. 2004). That is, activation increased with syntactic complexity (Figure 7.10).
对成人脑损伤的研究也表明布罗卡区在句法中发挥着作用。 布罗卡区及其周围皮质的急性成人病变与以下因素有关: 语法缺失——即语法和形态上简化的言语。患有语法失语症(例如患者患有布罗卡氏失语症的人)难以理解束缚和非束缚词素——即词缀(黏着词素)和功能词(非黏着词素),这些患者经常会放弃或替换这些词缀和功能词。语法缺失症患者似乎特别难以理解依赖于较高层次类别(如 IP)的语言结构和词素,而依赖于较低层次类别(如 NP)的语言结构和词素则不然。有趣的是,仅限于布罗卡区本身的损伤通常只会导致短暂性失语症。对于持续性语法缺失症,病变必须稍大一些,这强调了附近皮质区域在句法中的重要性。
Studies of adult-onset brain damage also suggest a role for Broca’s region in syntax. Acute adult-onset lesions of Broca’s area and surrounding cortex is associated with agrammatism – that is, syntactically and morphologically simplified speech. Patients with agrammatic aphasia (e.g. patients with Broca’s aphasia) have difficulty with bound and unbound morphemes – i.e. affixes (bound morphemes) and function words (unbound morphemes), which are often dropped or substituted by these patients. Agrammatics seem to have an especially difficult time with linguistic structures and morphemes that depend on categories which are higher in the hierarchy (such as IP), as compared to those that are lower (such as NP). Interestingly, damage that is restricted to Broca’s area itself generally only produces transient aphasia. The lesion must be somewhat larger for persistent agrammatism, underscoring the importance of nearby cortical regions in syntax.
语法缺失患者的句法障碍并不局限于表达性语言。这些患者在接受性语言方面也常常存在很大困难,特别是在使用句法结构理解句子方面。一种观点认为,他们在关联句子中的元素方面存在特定的句法缺陷(Grodzinsky 2000)。这一假设依赖于某些语言理论的假设,这些理论认为句子的计算涉及将单词或短语从句子中的一个位置移动到另一个位置。这被认为会在元素的原始位置留下一个隐藏的标记(例如“痕迹”)。例如,在被动句“ 母牛被马追赶”<trace>中,<trace>显示了母牛被移动的位置。语法缺失患者,尤其是布罗卡区受损的患者,被认为失去了将移动的元素与其原始位置(即痕迹)。
The syntactic impairments of agrammatic patients are not limited to expressive language. These patients also often have substantial difficulty in receptive language, particularly in using syntactic structure to understand sentences. According to one view, they have specific syntactic deficits in relating elements in a sentence (Grodzinsky 2000). This hypothesis depends on assumptions made by certain linguistic theories that posit that the computation of a sentence involves moving words or phrases from one position in a sentence to another. This is thought to leave a hidden marker (e.g. a “trace”) in the element’s original position. For example, in the passive sentence The cow is chased <trace> by the horse, the <trace> shows the position from where the cow was moved. Agrammatic patients, in particular those with damage to Broca’s area, are posited to have lost the ability to relate moved elements to their original positions (i.e. to the traces).
发育障碍的证据也表明布罗卡区与句法有关。患有特殊语言障碍的儿童,其布罗卡区存在特殊异常,在言语和理解方面存在广泛的句法障碍。与语法障碍患者一样,这些儿童似乎在依赖于更高功能类别的词素方面存在特殊困难。此外,布罗卡区异常在患有自闭症,这与句法生成和理解方面的困难有关(Walenski等人,2006 年)。
Evidence from developmental disorders also implicates Broca’s area in syntax. Children with Specific Language Impairment, who have particular abnormalities in Broca’s area, have a wide range of syntactic impairments in both speech and comprehension. Like agrammatic patients, these children seem to have particular trouble with morphemes that depend on higher functional categories. Additionally, Broca’s area abnormalities have been observed in children with autism, which is associated with syntactic difficulties both in production and comprehension (Walenski et al. 2006).
需要指出的是,并非所有布罗卡区都具有相同的句法功能。相反,不同的亚区似乎发挥着不同的作用。尽管迄今为止的证据还不足以让我们对布罗卡区特定部分的确切功能得出明确的结论,但某些模式已经开始显现。例如,根据一种观点,额叶岛盖和下巴 44 附近的皮层有助于局部结构构建,而 BA 44 的更多前部和上部支持长距离依赖关系和句法工作记忆,而 BA 45/47 是句子层面语义处理的基础(Friederici 2002;Opitz和Friederici 2007)。
It is important to point out that not all of Broca’s region underlies the same syntactic functions. Rather, different subregions seem to have different roles. Although the evidence to date does not allow one to draw unambiguous conclusions about the precise functions of the particular parts of Broca’s region, certain patterns are beginning to emerge. For example, according to one view, the frontal operculum and perhaps nearby cortex in inferior BA 44 contributes to local structure building, whereas more anterior and superior portions of BA 44 support long-distance dependencies and syntactic working memory, and BA 45/47 underlies aspects of semantic processing at the sentence level (Friederici 2002; Opitz and Friederici 2007).
句法不仅仅依赖于布罗卡区。大量的句子处理神经影像学研究都表明颞叶的前部和后部,尤其是左半球的颞叶,都参与了句法。前部区域似乎包括前颞上回 (BA 22)、颞上沟和颞中回 (BA 21) 的部分,并向前延伸至颞极 (BA 38)。有人提出,这个前颞区是获取有关单词语法类别的信息的基础,这些信息为布罗卡区的在线结构构建过程提供信息。这种作用与独立证据表明该区域参与词汇过程相一致(见颞后区被认为支持听觉工作记忆(Dronkers等人,2004 年)或句法整合(Friederici,2004 年),它似乎包括颞上回(BA 22)的后部、颞上沟和颞中回,并可能延伸至角回(BA 39)。
Syntax does not depend only on Broca’s region. A wide range of neuroimaging studies of sentence processing have implicated both anterior and posterior portions of the temporal lobe, especially in the left hemisphere. An anterior region seems to include anterior portions of the superior temporal gyrus (BA 22), superior temporal sulcus, and middle temporal gyrus (BA 21), and extends forward to the temporal pole (in BA 38). It has been suggested that this anterior temporal region underlies access to information about the grammatical category of words, which feeds into online structure-building processes in Broca’s area. Such a role is consistent with independent evidence implicating this region in lexical processes (see above). The posterior temporal region, which has been posited to support auditory working memory (Dronkers et al. 2004) or syntactic integration (Friederici 2004), appears to include posterior portions of the superior temporal gyrus (BA 22), superior temporal sulcus, and middle temporal gyrus, and may extend back to the angular gyrus (BA 39).
证据还表明,基底神经节在句法中发挥作用。患有 帕金森氏症患者(基底神经节退化)在生成和理解方面均表现出句法障碍。同样,亨廷顿氏病患者的言语也表现出句法障碍。特定性语言障碍——正如我们所见,与重要的句法障碍有关——不仅与布罗卡区异常有关,还与基底神经节(特别是尾状核)异常有关。神经影像学研究报告称,句法违规和快速处理(而非缓慢呈现的句子)时基底神经节会激活。那么基底神经节对句法有什么作用呢?目前尚不清楚,但有研究表明,基底神经节结构可能是句法排序、学习规则支配的句法(和其他语法)模式以及句法整合的基础(Friederici 2004;Lieberman 2002;乌尔曼(2004 年)。
Evidence also suggests that the basal ganglia play a role in syntax. Patients with Parkinson’s disease (who suffer from basal ganglia degeneration) show syntactic impairments in both production and comprehension. Likewise, patients with Huntington’s disease show syntactic impairments in their speech. Specific Language Impairment – which, as we have seen, is tied to important syntactic impairments – is associated with abnormalities not only of Broca’s area, but also of the basal ganglia, especially the caudate nucleus. Neuroimaging studies have reported basal ganglia activation for syntactic violations and for processing rapidly as opposed to slowly presented sentences. So what do the basal ganglia do for syntax? That’s not yet clear, though it has been suggested that basal ganglia structures may underlie sequencing in syntax, learning rule-governed syntactic (and other grammatical) patterns, and syntactic integration (Friederici 2004; Lieberman 2002; Ullman 2004).
句法的时空动态主要在句子理解中进行研究。与词语生成一样,我们对句子理解的时空动态的理解来自许多不同的证据来源,包括对脑损伤患者的研究、血液动力学神经成像、ERP、MEG 和心理语言学研究。然而,由于句法处理极其复杂,尚未出现对它的清晰理解,不同的研究人员对数据的解释也略有不同。在这里,我们根据迄今为止提出的最全面的神经认知解释(即模型)展示了关于听觉句子理解(即听句子)的数据,该解释是由马克斯普朗克人类认知和脑科学研究所的 Angela Friederici 和她的同事。接下来,我们简要讨论了数据的其他可能解释。
The spatiotemporal dynamics of syntax have mainly been studied in sentence comprehension. As in word production, our understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of sentence comprehension derives from many different sources of evidence, including studies of brain-damaged patients, hemodynamic neuroimaging, ERPs, MEG, and psycholinguistic studies. However, because syntactic processing is extremely complex, a clear understanding of it has yet to emerge, and different researchers have interpreted the data in somewhat different ways. Here we present the data on auditory sentence comprehension (i.e. listening to sentences) in light of the most comprehensive neurocognitive interpretation (i.e. model) proposed thus far, developed by Angela Friederici and her colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Following this, we briefly discuss other possible interpretations of the data.
当你听到句子中的每个单词时(例如,句子“狗对着刺猬狂吠”),你的大脑首先进行语音处理,以识别单词形式,此时句法处理开始。在单词开始后约 150 到 200 毫秒,其语法类别(例如“狗”的名词)可以在前颞上皮层中访问。这使得单词能够被纳入句法结构,句法结构发生在额岛叶和下巴 44 区域的同一时间段内。这种结构的构建还需要在工作记忆中维护结构表征,这取决于上颞叶和前颞叶BA 44 的部分。这些不同过程的各个方面都反映在 ERP 成分“ELAN”(早期左前部负波)中。
When you hear each word in a sentence (e.g. in the sentence The dog barked at the hedgehog), your brain first performs phonological processing in order to identify the word form, at which point syntactic processing begins. At about 150 to 200 milliseconds after the word begins, its grammatical category (e.g. noun for dog) may be accessed in the anterior superior temporal cortex. This allows the word to be incorporated into the syntactic structure, which takes place around the same time period in the region of the frontal operculum and inferior BA 44. This structure building also requires maintaining the structural representation in working memory, which depends on superior and anterior portions of BA 44. Aspects of these various processes are reflected in the “ELAN” (Early Left Anterior Negativity), ERP component.
此时,可以访问词汇条目,从而进行后续的形态句法和语义整合。这两个过程似乎都在单词开始后约 300 到 500 毫秒内发生。形态句法整合(例如,用于一致性)涉及 BA 44 区域,可能延伸到 BA 45,反映在“LAN”(左前负性)ERP 成分中。另一方面,语义整合依赖于颞叶区域和 BA 45/47,并反映在 N400 ERP 成分中(见上文)。
At this point, the lexical entry can be accessed, allowing for subsequent morphosyntactic and semantic integration. Both of these processes seem to take place about 300 to 500 milliseconds after word onset. Morphosyntactic integration (e.g., for agreement), which involves the area of BA 44, perhaps extending to BA 45, is reflected in the “LAN” (Left Anterior Negativity) ERP component. Semantic integration, on the other hand, relies on temporal lobe regions and BA 45/47, and is reflected in the N400 ERP component (see above).
在处理当前句子中单词的最后阶段,任何歧义或错误都会被整理出来,以便得出最终的句法结构和语义解释。例如,句子“当玛丽散步时,狗追着车”很容易被误解,因为狗很可能最初被解释为“散步”的直接宾语。然而,这种解释导致下一个词(chased)难以融入句子。因此需要修改和修复过程来找到解决方案,在这种情况下,这需要认识到“散步”不需要直接宾语,因此“狗”实际上是“chased”的主语。(这些句子通常(也称为“花园小径”句子,因为读者在阅读和解释这些句子时最初是被“引导到花园小径”的。)因此,句子“ 当玛丽遛狗时<子句边界>被追赶……”的初始解释被更正为:当玛丽散步时<子句边界>狗被追赶……”这些修改/修复过程反映在“P600”ERP 成分中,以响应引起对问题注意的词(例如chased)。该过程的神经基础仍不太清楚,尽管它们可能部分依赖于基底神经节。
In the final stage of processing the word within the ongoing sentence, any ambiguities or errors are sorted out in order to arrive at a final syntactic structure and semantic interpretation. For example, the sentence While Mary was walking the dog chased the car is prone to misinterpretation, as the dog is likely to be initially interpreted as the direct object of walking. However, this interpretation causes the next word (chased) to be difficult to integrate into the sentence. Revision and repair processes are therefore called upon to find a solution, which in this case involves recognizing that walking does not need a direct object, so that the dog is actually serving as the subject of chased. (These sentences are often called “garden-path” sentences, as the reader is initially led “down the garden path” in reading and interpreting them.) Thus the initial interpretation of the sentence, While Mary was walking the dog <clause boundary> chased … is corrected to: While Mary was walking <clause boundary> the dog chased … These revision/repair processes are reflected in the “P600” ERP component in response to the word that brings attention to the problem (e.g. chased). The neural bases of this process are still not well understood, though they may depend partly on the basal ganglia.
必须强调的是,这一系列步骤只是对数据的一种解释。尽管弗里德里奇的模型可能是最明确的神经认知观点,但也提出了其他解释。与单词生成一样,句子理解模型往往假设要么是连续处理(即句法和语义子过程的不同步骤的相对严格的顺序),要么是交互处理,其中这些子过程相互依赖,并且往往同时发生。弗里德里奇提出的模型强调连续子过程,但也承认其中一些子过程相互作用,特别是在句法修订的最后阶段和维修。
It is important to emphasize that this series of steps is only one interpretation of the data. Although Friederici’s model is perhaps the best-specified neurocognitive perspective, other interpretations have also been proposed. As in word production, models of sentence comprehension tend to assume either serial processing – i.e. a relatively strict sequence of distinct steps of syntactic and semantic subprocesses – or interactive processing, in which these subprocesses are heavily interdependent and tend to occur at the same time. The model proposed by Friederici emphasizes serial subprocesses, but also acknowledges that some of these interact, in particular in the last phase during syntactic revision and repair.
双胞胎研究表明,句法的发展,尤其是形态句法的发展,至少部分受到遗传因素的影响——显然比词汇的发展影响更大。遗传因素对句法的影响在语言产生和语言理解的研究中都有发现。然而,与词汇一样,这些因素在多大程度上可能特定于句法仍不清楚。遗传发育障碍的数据也支持遗传因素在句法中的作用。因此,正如我们上面所看到的,特定语言障碍与各种 句法(以及其他)障碍。
Twin studies suggest that the development of syntax, and morphosyntax in particular, is at least partly influenced by genetic factors – apparently more so than the development of vocabulary. Evidence for a genetic influence on syntax is found in studies of both language production and language comprehension. However, as with vocabulary, it remains unclear to what extent these factors may be specific to syntax. Data from hereditary developmental disorders also support a role for genetics in syntax. Thus as we have seen above, Specific Language Impairment is strongly associated with a variety of syntactic (as well as other) impairments.
导致发育性语言障碍的基因中,研究最深入的可能是FOXP2基因。该基因突变最初是在一个大家族(“KE 家族”)中一半的成员患有遗传性发育障碍。这个家族中受影响的成员患有言语和语言障碍,包括语法和形态障碍,尽管他们显然也有非语言障碍,例如运动排序障碍。人类和动物(啮齿动物和猴子)研究都表明,该基因在基底神经节(尤其是尾状核)中表达(即开启),特别是在发育中的胚胎中。这些结构在 KE 家族的受影响成员中被发现异常。然而,关于该基因及其与语言和非语言功能的关系仍有许多未知之处。进一步的研究可能会揭示这个问题,以及遗传学的其他方面语言。
Perhaps the best-studied gene responsible for developmental language disorders is the FOXP2 gene. Mutations of this gene were originally found in about half the members of a large family (the “KE family”) who have a hereditary developmental disorder. The affected members of this family suffer from speech and language deficits, including of syntax and morphology, although they clearly also have nonlinguistic impairments, such as of motor sequencing. Both human and animal (rodent and monkey) studies have shown that the gene is expressed (i.e. turned on) at high levels in the basal ganglia (especially in the caudate nucleus), particularly in the developing embryo. These structures have been found to be abnormal in affected members of the KE family. However, much remains unknown about the gene and its relation to linguistic and nonlinguistic functions. Further research is likely to shed light on this question, as well as other aspects of the genetics of language.
正如我们上面所看到的,不同的句法过程似乎依赖于不同的大脑结构。句法和其他语言处理(如词汇/语义和语音处理)之间似乎也存在一定程度的神经认知可分离性——尽管考虑到这些功能在句法处理中也是必需的(正如我们所看到的),它们也可能参与句法处理研究。因此,句法和这些其他领域之间不会出现明显的神经认知分离。例如,BA 45/47 和前颞叶皮层在词汇和语义处理中至关重要,但它们也在句子处理中发挥作用,尽管这些作用似乎反映了它们的核心词汇和语义功能。
As we have seen above, different syntactic processes seem to depend on different brain structures. There also appears to be some degree of neurocognitive separability between syntactic and other linguistic processing, such as lexical/semantic and phonological processing – although, given the fact that these functions are also required in syntactic processing (as we have seen), they are likely to be engaged in syntactic processing studies as well. Therefore clear neurocognitive dissociations between syntax and these other domains are not expected. For example, BA 45/47 and anterior temporal cortex are critical in lexical and semantic processing, but they also play roles in sentence processing, albeit roles that seem to reflect their core lexical and semantic functions.
如上文所述,证明领域特异性非常困难。事实上,几乎没有任何强有力的生物认知数据支持句法的领域特异性。甚至可能最好的证据(来自一组似乎只有句法缺陷的特定语言障碍儿童(van der Lely 2005))也是有问题的,主要是因为这些儿童只接受了有限范围的非语言任务的测试。相反,越来越多的证据表明句法和某些非语言功能之间存在很强的生物认知关联。例如,BA 44 和基底神经节不仅是句法的基础,也是一系列非语言功能的基础,包括运动和音乐处理(见下文框 7.3)。事实上,有人提出,这些大脑结构在句法中的计算作用反映了它们在程序记忆系统中的语言和非语言作用,而程序记忆系统可能专门用于跨多个认知领域的序列和规则(框7.2)。支持这一观点的证据来自多种来源(Ullman 2004)。例如,特定语言障碍不仅与句法缺陷有关,还与复杂顺序动作障碍和程序记忆学习问题有关。同样,患有帕金森病、亨廷顿病,或语法失语症患者有运动障碍,以及序列学习。
As we have seen above, it is very difficult to demonstrate domain-specificity. Indeed, there is little if any strong biocognitive data supporting the domain-specificity of syntax. Even perhaps the best evidence, from a group of children with Specific Language Impairment who appear to have only syntactic deficits (van der Lely 2005) is problematic, largely because these children have been tested only on a restricted range of nonlinguistic tasks. In contrast, accumulating evidence suggests strong biocognitive associations between syntactic and certain nonlinguistic functions. For example, BA 44 and the basal ganglia underlie not just syntax, but also a range of nonlinguistic functions, including motor and music processing (see Box 7.3 below). Indeed, it has been proposed that these brain structures’ computational roles in syntax reflect their linguistic and nonlinguistic roles in the procedural memory system, which may be specialized for sequences and rules across multiple cognitive domains (Box 7.2). Evidence supporting this view comes from a variety of sources (Ullman 2004). For example, Specific Language Impairment is associated not only with syntactic deficits, but also with impairments of complex sequential movements and learning problems in procedural memory. Similarly, patients with Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, or agrammatic aphasia have motor impairments as well as problems with sequence learning.
音乐和语言都包含按层次组织的基本元素序列,这些序列会随着时间的推移而展开。音乐可以分解为音符和和弦序列(即同时演奏三个或更多音符),而语言则由音素、词素和单词等单元序列组成。在语言和音乐中,较低级别的单元都按规则控制的层次结构排列,以形成更高层次的结构,例如语言中形态复杂的单词、短语和句子,以及音乐中的主题、短语和乐章。
Both music and language contain hierarchically organized sequences of basic elements that unfold over time. Music can be broken down into sequences of notes and chords (i.e. three or more notes played simultaneously), whereas language consists of sequences of units such as phonemes, morphemes, and words. In both language and music, lower-level units are arranged in a rule-governed hierarchical configuration to form higher-order structures, such as morphologically complex words, phrases, and sentences in language, and motifs, phrases, and movements in music.
多种方法得出的综合证据表明,接受性句子处理和音乐感知依赖于非常相似的解剖学基础。正如我们所见,句法处理的某些方面依赖于 BA 44 及其周围的皮层,而句法违规会激活该皮层。同样,fMRI 和 MEG 研究都报告了 BA 44 在音乐序列中意外和弦时被激活。在语言中,该区域的激活主要集中在左侧,而在音乐中,该区域的激活往往是双侧的,略微集中在右半球。颞叶区域也与语言和音乐感知有关。当人们遇到意外和弦或乐器变化时,句法处理所依赖的颞上皮层的前部和后部也被证明是活跃的。最后,研究发现 ERP 模式与语言的句法违规和音乐序列中的和声偏差相似,尽管语言的 ERP 模式比音乐序列的 ERP 模式更左侧化音乐。
Converging evidence from multiple methods suggests that receptive sentence processing and music perception depend on very similar anatomical substrates. As we have seen, aspects of syntactic processing depend on cortex in and around BA 44, which is activated by syntactic violations. Similarly, both fMRI and MEG studies have reported activation of BA 44 in response to unexpected chords in musical sequences. In language, activation of this region is largely lateralized to the left, while in music it tends to be bilateral, with a slight lateralization to the right hemisphere. Temporal lobe regions have also been implicated in both language and music perception. Both the anterior and posterior portions of superior temporal cortex that underlie syntactic processing have also been shown to be active when people encounter an unexpected chord or change in instrument. Finally, studies have found similar ERP patterns to syntactic violations of language and to harmonic deviations in musical sequences, though again, those for language are more left lateralized than those for music.
在上一节中,我们已经看到许多不同的大脑结构支持语法,包括形态语法。这里我们重点讨论规则和不规则之间的区别形态音系学,在过去的二十年里得到了深入的研究,特别是屈折形态学,也包括派生形态学。
In the previous section we have seen that a number of different brain structures support syntax, including morphosyntax. Here we focus on the distinction between regular and irregular morphophonology, which has been intensively studied over the past two decades – especially in inflectional morphology, but also in derivational morphology.
颞叶受损的患者在产生、识别和阅读不规则屈折形式时比在规则屈折形式时更困难(例如dug、keep或mice与walking、played或rats相比)。在患有急性病变的患者中,英语屈折形态也发现了这种模式,阿尔茨海默病,或语义性痴呆,以及阿尔茨海默病患者的意大利语。相反,额叶和/或基底神经节结构的损伤——帕金森病,亨廷顿氏病以及患有急性病变的患者通常(但并非总是)对常规患者的影响大于非常规患者。
Patients with temporal lobe damage have greater difficulty producing, recognizing, and reading irregular than regular inflected forms (e.g. dug, kept, or mice versus walked, played, or rats). This pattern has been found for English inflectional morphology in patients with acute lesions, Alzheimer’s disease, or semantic dementia, as well as for Italian in Alzheimer’s patients. In contrast, damage to frontal and/or basal ganglia structures – in Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and patients with acute lesions – has often (but not always) been shown to affect regulars more than irregulars.
英语、德语和意大利语接受性语言的 ERP 研究发现,不规则词形变化的出现或缺失(例如昨天我挖了一个洞)经常会引发 N400(这取决于颞叶结构;见上文), 不恰当的常规词缀(例如昨天我走过那里)通常会导致 LAN(与左额叶结构相关)。表达性语言的 ERP 和 MEG 研究发现,虽然产生英语不规则过去时形式会引发颞叶活动,但产生常规过去时形式会激活额叶区域。
ERP studies of receptive language in English, German, and Italian have found that whereas the inappropriate presence or absence of irregular inflection (e.g. Yesterday I dig a hole) often elicits N400s (which depend on temporal lobe structures; see above), inappropriate regular affixation (e.g. Yesterday I walk over there) generally leads to LANs (which are linked to left frontal structures). ERP and MEG studies of expressive language have found that whereas producing English irregular past-tense forms elicits temporal lobe activity, producing regular past-tense forms yields activation in frontal regions.
在血流动力学神经影像学研究中,不规则球蛋白在广泛的结构中引起了特殊的激活,包括左侧颞中回、其他颞叶和顶叶区域以及小脑。相比之下,许多研究报告称,规则的形态形式会引起布罗卡区和基底神经节的激活。例如,一项对芬兰语(一种形态非常丰富且富有成效的语言)的 PET 研究报告称,受试者在听规则的屈折名词时,布罗卡区的激活程度要高于听单形态形式(如英语中的cat)(Laine等人,1999 年)。同样,一项关于英语屈折和派生形态的 fMRI 研究发现,规则的屈折形式(后缀为-ed或-ing)和规则的派生形式(带有富有成效的词缀,如-ness和-less)的视觉呈现,比不规则的派生形式(带有相对不具成效的词缀,如-ity和-ation)或单形态词(Vannest等人,2005 年)。
In hemodynamic neuroimaging studies, irregulars have elicited particular activation in a broad range of structures, including the left middle temporal gyrus, other temporal and parietal regions, and the cerebellum. In contrast, a number of studies have reported that regular morphological forms elicit activation in Broca’s region and the basal ganglia. For example, a PET study of Finnish, a morphologically very rich and productive language, reported greater activation in Broca’s area while subjects listened to regular inflected nouns than to monomorphemic forms (like cat in English) (Laine et al. 1999). Similarly, an fMRI study of English inflectional and derivational morphology found that the visual presentation of regular inflected forms (-ed or -ing suffixed) and regular derivational forms (with productive affixes, such as -ness and -less) elicited greater activation in Broca’s area and in the caudate nucleus of the left basal ganglia than irregular derivational forms (with relatively unproductive affixes, such as -ity and -ation) or monomorphemic words (Vannest et al. 2005).
因此,有证据表明,无论是在表达性语言还是接受性语言中,不规则语言和规则语言在很大程度上依赖于不同的大脑结构,前者严重依赖于颞叶区域,而后者则强烈依赖于额叶皮层,特别是布罗卡区,以及基底神经节结构。
Thus the evidence suggests that, in both expressive and receptive language, irregulars and regulars depend on largely different brain structures, with the former relying heavily on temporal lobe regions, while the latter rely strongly on frontal cortex, especially Broca’s region, as well as the basal ganglia structures.
至少有一项 ERP 研究和两项 MEG 研究检查了英语过去时生成的时间过程(Dhond等人,2003 年;Lavric等人,2001 年;Rhee等人,1999 年)。这三项研究得出了大致相似的模式。在这三项研究中,不规则过去时(例如dug )的生成在词干呈现后(例如dig ,用于提示主语)的 250 到 340 毫秒之间引起左颞叶激活。这与在图片命名任务中检索单词形式时在左颞叶皮质部分在 250 到 330 毫秒之间发现的激活模式相似。常规(例如walking)在这三项研究中也表现出一致性,在三项研究中均在词干呈现后 310 到 470 毫秒之间引起额叶皮质的激活——在一项研究中具体定位到布罗卡区。再次,这种模式与图片命名中发现的模式相似,其中发现布罗卡区位于 330 到 455 毫秒之间声音模式(包括词素)组合的基础之上。
At least one ERP and two MEG studies have examined the time course of English past-tense production (Dhond et al. 2003; Lavric et al. 2001; Rhee et al. 1999). These three studies yielded largely similar patterns. In all three, the production of irregular past tenses (e.g. dug) yielded left temporal-lobe activation between 250 and 340 milliseconds after presentation of the stem (e.g. dig, which is used to prompt the subject). This is similar to the pattern of activation found between 250 and 330 milliseconds in portions of left temporal cortex for the retrieval of word forms in picture naming tasks. Regulars (e.g. walked) also showed consistency across the three studies, eliciting activation in frontal cortex – specifically localized to Broca’s area in one study – between 310 and 470 milliseconds after stem presentation in all three studies. Again, this pattern is similar to that found in picture naming, in which Broca’s area has been found to underlie the combination of sound patterns, including morphemes, between 330 and 455 milliseconds.
因此,大量证据表明,规则和不规则形态之间存在分离。两种截然不同的理论观点对这种模式提供了解释。根据“双系统”假说,不规则和规则背后的大脑结构差异反映了词汇过程(对于不规则词,假定存储在词汇中)和规则控制的组合过程之间的差异,后者也是语法的基础(对于规则词)(例如,参见方框 7.2和 Pinker 和 Ullman 2002)。相比之下,“单一机制”假说否认形态组合,而是认为规则和不规则词都依赖于相同的计算机制——即可以通过联结主义(即“神经网络”)模拟建模的统计学习机制。例如,根据一种单一机制模型中,常规语音和不规则语音都依赖于紧密相连的网络,而这些网络是语音和语义处理的基础(McClelland 和 Patterson 2002)。
Substantial evidence thus suggests dissociations between regular and irregular morphological forms. Two very different theoretical perspectives have offered explanations for this pattern. According to “dual-system” hypotheses, the differences in the brain structures underlying irregulars and regulars reflect the difference between lexical processes (for irregulars, which are posited to be stored in the lexicon) and rule-governed compositional processes that also underlie syntax (for regulars) (e.g. see Box 7.2 and Pinker and Ullman 2002). In contrast, “single-mechanism” hypotheses deny morphological composition, arguing instead that regulars and irregulars both depend on the same computational mechanisms – i.e. statistical learning mechanisms that can be modeled by connectionist (i.e. “neural network”) simulations. For example, according to one single-mechanism model, regulars and irregulars both depend on closely interconnected networks that underlie phonological and semantic processing (McClelland and Patterson 2002).
这两种观点可以通过经验来区分。双系统假说预测了常规和不规则词之间的双重分离,而单机制模型则不会,只要控制了词类之间的其他差异(例如语音复杂性、真实世界频率)。尽管证据并没有明确区分这两种相互竞争的观点,但上文中讨论的双重分离等证据的积累似乎有利于双系统观点。
The two views can be empirically distinguished. Whereas dual-system hypotheses predict double dissociations between regulars and irregulars, single-mechanism models do not, once other differences between the word types (e.g. phonological complexity, real-world frequency) are controlled for. Although the evidence has not unambiguously distinguished between these two competing views, accumulating evidence such as the double dissociations discussed in the text above seems to favor a dual-system perspective.
有证据表明,不规则发音依赖于生物认知基础,这些基础不仅是词汇记忆的基础,而且是概念语义和陈述性记忆的基础。例如,患有阿尔茨海默病患者不仅在产生不规则词方面存在障碍,而且在寻找词语和事实知识以及学习这些知识方面也存在障碍。同样,规则词似乎依赖于句法和程序记忆的基础。因此,额叶或基底神经节受损的患者(例如患有帕金森病的患者)在常规、句法、运动功能和程序记忆方面均存在障碍。在一项帕金森病研究中,连续动作难度较大的患者在产生常规(而非不规则)过去时时也存在较大困难表格(Ullman等人,1997 年)。这些数据和其他数据表明,不规则和规则的形态形式得到了领域通用大脑记忆系统的支持(见方框 7.2)。然而,与本章讨论的许多其他问题一样,目前尚无定论,这个问题仍有待未来解决。研究。
Evidence suggests that irregulars depend on biocognitive substrates that underlie not just lexical memory, but also conceptual-semantics, and declarative memory more generally. For example, patients with Alzheimer’s disease are impaired not only at producing irregulars, but also at finding words and factual knowledge, and at learning this knowledge. Likewise, regulars seem to depend on substrates that underlie both syntax and procedural memory. Thus patients with frontal or basal ganglia damage, such as those with Parkinson’s disease, show impairments across regulars, syntax, motor function, and procedural memory. In one study of Parkinson’s disease, the patients with greater difficulty at sequential movements also had greater difficulty producing regular (but not irregular) past-tense forms (Ullman et al. 1997). These and other data suggest that irregular and regular morphological forms are supported by domain-general brain memory systems (see Box 7.2). However, as with many of the other questions discussed in this chapter, the jury is still out, and the issue remains to be resolved by future research.
在本章的开头,我们将语言生物学的研究置于更广泛的科学背景中。我们强调,必须考虑语言生物学的各个方面,而且必须将其与语言的处理和表征一起进行研究。首先,我们回顾了大脑的生物学,从神经解剖学到神经元、激素、神经递质和基因。其次,我们讨论了关于语言生物学的几个主要问题。第三,我们研究了目前用于研究语言生物学基础的主要方法。我们强调了使用多种互补方法以获得聚合证据的重要性。第四,我们回顾了语言神经生物学的现有证据,并讨论了为解释这些证据而提出的解释。我们详细研究了有关心理词汇、概念语义学、音系学、句法学和形态学的证据和解释。我们展示了本章前面提出的许多问题开始得到解答。因此,研究人员现在已经获得了合理的证据,表明哪些语言功能似乎依赖于哪些大脑结构,甚至开始了解它们可能依赖于哪些分子和基因。
At the beginning of this chapter, we situated the study of the biology of language in a broader scientific context. We emphasized that one must consider every aspect of the biology of language, which must moreover be examined together with the processing and representation of language. First, we took a tour of the biology of the brain, from neuroanatomy down to neurons, hormones, neurotransmitters, and genes. Second, we discussed several major questions that have been asked about the biology of language. Third, we examined the primary methods that are currently used to investigate the biological bases of language. We emphasized the importance of using multiple complementary methods in order to obtain converging evidence. Fourth, we reviewed existing evidence on the neurobiology of language, and discussed explanations that have been proposed to account for this evidence. We examined in some detail evidence and explanations regarding the mental lexicon, conceptual-semantics, phonology, syntax, and morphology. We showed how many of the questions asked earlier in the chapter are beginning to be answered. Thus researchers have now acquired reasonable evidence as to which language functions seem to rely on which brain structures, and are even starting to understand which molecules and genes they may depend on.
语言生物学研究才刚刚开始。事实上,本章中提出的大多数证据都是在过去十五年内报告的。上述许多技术以及即将出现的其他技术最近出现,可能会导致对语言生物学基础的研究出现更大规模的爆发式增长。此外,随着人们的注意力越来越多地从神经解剖学转向细胞、分子和遗传水平,随着对语言所有生物学基础的研究越来越多地与对语言处理和表征的研究相结合,我们对语言生物认知的理解及其对一系列更大问题的影响将急剧增加。未来是广阔而令人兴奋的。
The study of the biology of language is just beginning. In fact, most of the evidence presented in this chapter was reported within the past fifteen years. The recent emergence of many of the techniques described above, as well as others that will soon appear, is likely to lead to an ever-larger explosion of research on the biological bases of language. Moreover, as attention increasingly turns from neuroanatomy down to the cellular, molecular, and genetic levels, and as the study of all the biological bases of language is increasingly integrated with the investigation of the processing and representation of language, our understanding of the biocognition of language, and of its implications for a whole host of larger issues, will grow dramatically. The future is wide open and exciting.
什么是神经元?
What is a neuron?
下额回由三部分组成。说出它们的名字。
The inferior frontal gyrus is made up of three parts. Name them.
通常认为哪些脑回和哪些布罗德曼区与布罗卡区相对应?
Which gyri and which Brodmann’s areas are generally taken to correspond to Broca’s area?
解释为什么双重分离比单重分离更有说服力。
Explain why a double dissociation is more convincing than a single dissociation.
为什么证明领域特异性如此困难?
Why is it difficult to demonstrate domain-specificity?
哪些方法最适合将功能定位到特定的大脑结构?解释你的答案。
Which methods are most appropriate for localizing functions to particular brain structures? Explain your answer.
哪些方法最适合揭示语言处理的时空过程?解释你的答案。
Which methods are best for revealing the spatiotemporal course of language processing? Explain your answer.
与 ERP 相比,直接皮质记录有哪些优点和缺点?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of direct cortical recording as compared to ERPs?
列出与词汇知识的获取、表征或处理有关的解剖结构、激素和神经递质,并简要解释每种结构的明显功能作用。
List the anatomical structures, hormones, and neurotransmitters that have been implicated in the acquisition, representation, or processing of lexical knowledge, and briefly explain the apparent functional role(s) of each.
对于观察到的名词/动词分离现象有何解释?
What explanations have been given for the noun/verb dissociations that have been observed?
本章提出的哪些证据表明词汇记忆和陈述性记忆之间存在共同的生物学基础?
What evidence presented in this chapter suggests common biological substrates between lexical memory and declarative memory?
列出与 BA 44 相关的词汇、概念语义、音系、句法或形态功能。
List the lexical, conceptual-semantic, phonological, syntactic, or morphological functions that have been tied to BA 44.
列出与 BA 45 相关的词汇、概念语义、音系、句法或形态功能。
List the lexical, conceptual-semantic, phonological, syntactic, or morphological functions that have been tied to BA 45.
根据 Friederici 及其同事提出的模型,听觉句子处理涉及哪些不同阶段?请提供每个阶段的大致时间和解剖结构。
What are the different stages involved in auditory sentence processing, according to the model proposed by Friederici and her colleagues? Provide the approximate timing and anatomical structures for each stage.
列出本章形态学部分中描述的您认为对于双系统或单机制观点有问题的证据,并解释原因。
List the evidence described in the morphology section of this chapter that you think is problematic for either a dual-system or single-mechanism view, and explain why.
语言学的大多数分支学科(如本书中的大多数章节)都采用共时视角来看待语言,试图将语言描述和解释为某一特定时间点(通常是现在)的系统。这是一种有用的简化,它推动了现代语言学的进步,但实际上语言在不断、渐进地变化。正如关于儿童和第二语言习得的章节所表明的那样,将语言视为一个不断变化、不断发展的系统,可以深入了解其结构和使用。历时性地(随时间推移)研究语言也有助于我们更好地理解史前文化。
Most subfields of linguistics – like most of the chapters in this book – take a synchronic perspective toward language, trying to describe and explain language as a system at a given point in time (usually, the present). This is a useful simplification that has enabled much of the progress made by modern linguistics, but in reality languages are constantly, incrementally changing. As the chapters on both child and second language acquisition also show, looking at language as a changing, developing system offers valuable insights into its structure and use. Studying language diachronically (over time) also helps us to better understand prehistorical cultures.
本章讨论语言变化的原因、过程和机制,这些都是历史语言学关注的问题。首先,我们将讨论语言变化的原因,并描述四种主要的语言变化类型。然后,我们将更详细地讨论一些语言变化的机制。最后,我们将看到语言学家如何利用这些过程的知识,根据从这些语言衍生而来的语言的证据,重建不再使用的语言。
This chapter discusses the causes, processes, and mechanisms of language change, which are the concerns of historical linguistics. First, we’ll discuss the causes of language change and describe the four main kinds of language change. Then we’ll discuss in more detail some of the mechanisms of language change. Finally, we will see how linguists use knowledge of these processes to reconstruct languages that are no longer spoken, from evidence in the languages descended from them.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
早期语言的证据表明,相关语言之间的相似性以及方言之间的差异表明,语言会随着时间而发生变化。例如,在十四世纪乔叟写作《坎特伯雷故事集》时,英语单词see、tooth、make和open 的发音为 [se:] [to: θ ] [ma:k ε n] [ ɔ :p ε n]。拉丁语单词caru /ka ɹ u/“亲爱的”现在发音为 /ka ɹ o / caro西班牙语中的 / ʃ e ɹ / cher和法语中的 / ʃ e ɹ / cher。更现代一点,在美国中南部和南部方言区,pin/pen和tin/ten等词中的元音区别已经消失;在这些地区,元音 [ I ] 和 [ ε ] 在鼻音之前合并为 [ I ]。历史语言学——有时也称为历时语言学——试图解释语言如何随着时间而变化。
Evidence from earlier speech, similarities between related languages, and differences between dialects show that languages change over time. For example, in the fourteenth century, when Chaucer was writing The Canterbury Tales, the English words see, tooth, make, and open were pronounced as [se:] [to:θ] [ma:kεn] [ɔ:pεn]. The Latin word caru /kaɹu/ ‘dear’ is now pronounced /kaɹo/ caro in Spanish and /ʃeɹ/ cher in French. More contemporarily, the distinction between the vowel sounds in words like pin/pen and tin/ten has been lost in the South Midland and Southern dialect areas in the United States; in these areas the vowels [I] and [ε] have merged before nasals into [I]. Historical linguistics – sometimes also called diachronic linguistics – seeks to explain how languages change over time.
所有语言都会适应其语言社区不断变化的环境和需求。语言通常会因与其他语言(及其文化)的接触而发生变化,因此语言变化反映了一个语言社区的社会、政治和军事历史。通过研究语言的变化,我们可以更好地了解一种文化的历史。例如,诺曼征服(公元 1066 年)后,讲法语的诺曼人占领了英格兰三百年;这对英语产生了深远的影响,明显表现在政府、军事和法律领域的许多概念都从法语中借用了词汇。政府、国家、议会、社会、王室、法律、法院、律师、法官、犯罪、陪审团都源自法语,这只是其中的几个。法国三百年的政治统治也导致了英语音系、形态和句法的变化。
All languages adapt to meet the changing contexts and needs of their speech communities. Often languages change as a result of contact with other languages (and their cultures), so language change reflects the social, political, and military history of a speech community. By studying changes in its language, we can better understand the history of a culture. For example, the French-speaking Normans occupied England for three hundred years following the Norman Conquest (1066 CE); this had a profound impact on the English language, evident in words borrowed from French for many concepts in the domains of government, the military, and the law. Government, nation, parliament, society, royal, law, court, attorney, judge, crime, jury all derived from French, to list just a few. Three hundred years of French political dominance caused changes in English phonology, morphology, and syntax as well.
语言的变化是有规律、有系统的。声音变化自中世纪英语影响了整个语音类别,而不仅仅是see、tooth、make和open。这种规律性使历史语言学家能够“回顾”一种语言的历史并重建早期的形式。了解语言在其各自历史中使用的形式范围,使我们能够更好地理解所有人类语言都具有的结构、系统选项和约束。
Language change is regular and systematic. Sound changes since Middle English have affected whole classes of sounds, not just see, tooth, make, and open. This regularity allows historical linguists to “read back” through the history of a language and reconstruct earlier forms. Knowing the range of forms that languages have used throughout their respective histories allows us to better understand the structural, systematic options and constraints that are universal to all human languages.
语言之所以会发生变化,是因为语言是由人类而不是机器使用的。人类具有共同的生理和认知特征,但语言社区的成员在知识和使用共同语言方面略有不同。不同地区、社会阶层和世代的说话者使用语言的方式不同(方言变化),所有说话者在不同情况下使用语言的方式也不同(语域变化)。当孩子习得母语时,他们会接触到这种语言中的共时变化。例如,任何一代的说话者都会根据情况使用更多或更少的正式语言。父母(和其他成年人)倾向于对孩子使用更多的非正式语言。儿童可能会获得一些非正式的语言特征,而不是正式的语言特征,并且语言的渐进变化(趋向于更大的非正式性)会随着代代相传而积累。(这可能有助于解释为什么每一代人似乎都觉得后代更粗鲁、更不善言辞,并且正在破坏语言!)当后代获得了上一代引入的语言创新时,语言就会发生变化。
Languages change because they are used by human beings, not machines. Human beings share common physiological and cognitive characteristics, but members of a speech community differ slightly in their knowledge and use of their shared language. Speakers of different regions, social classes, and generations use language differently (dialect variation), and all speakers use language differently in different situations (register variation). As children acquire their native language, they are exposed to this synchronic variation within their language. For example, speakers of any generation use more and less formal language depending on the situation. Parents (and other adults) tend to use more informal language to children. Children may acquire some informal features of the language in preference to their formal alternatives, and incremental changes in the language (tending toward greater informality) accumulate over generations. (This may help explain why each generation seems to feel that following generations are ruder and less eloquent, and are corrupting the language!) When a later generation acquires an innovation in the language introduced by a previous generation, the language changes.
语言变化虽然不可避免,但变化并不稳定;一种语言可能在几代人中变化不大,然后在短短几代人中发生巨大变化。生理、认知和社会力量推动着变化,大多数语言变化可以归因于发音的简化、规则化和语言之间的接触。
Language change, though inevitable, is not steady; a language may experience little change for many generations and then undergo dramatic changes in the course of just a few lifetimes. Physiological, cognitive, and social forces motivate change, and most language change can be attributed to articulatory simplification, regularization, and contact between languages.
语言音系的许多变化都是出于生理目的,即提高发音的便利性。如果语言中的某个音序难以发音,或者过于复杂,则可能会简化。例如,随着许多位置上的音素 / ə / 的消失(早期的音素变化),许多辅音簇出现在俄语。这些词群在很多情况下通过同化而得到简化:
Many changes in the phonology of a language are motivated by the physiological goal of enhancing ease of articulation. If a sequence of sounds in a language is difficult to pronounce, or is unnecessarily complex, it is likely to be simplified. For example, with the loss of the phoneme /ə/ in many positions (an earlier sound change), many consonant clusters arose in Russian. These clusters were in many cases simplified by assimilation:
| 原始斯拉夫语: | /没有žə ka/ | /s ə d j ælat j i/ | /pod ə p j isat j i/ |
| 小脚 | ‘要做’ | ‘签署’ | |
| ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | |
| 俄语: | /不š ka/ | /z j d j élat j / | /pat j p j isát j / |
(箭头表示“变成”、“成为”。)这种同化是倒退的;辅音群的第一个成员变得更像第二个声音。在这种情况下,第一个声音变得(去)浊化和腭化(变音符号j表示腭化),更像第二个声音,使这些词更容易发音。
(An arrow means ‘changed into,’ ‘became.’) This assimilation was regressive; the first member of the consonant cluster became more like the second sound. In this case, the first sounds became (de)voiced and palatalized (the diacritic j indicates palatalization) and more like the second sounds, making these words easier to pronounce.
语言是灵活、开放、适应性强的系统,但它们也表现出许多保持其完整性和规律性的机制,以使它们的使用者能够继续在所有变化过程中 (相对) 有效地沟通。任何尝试过学习第二语言的人都知道这种认知动机;规则的模式比具有大量例外的模式更容易学习。学习母语的儿童也更喜欢规则的模式,而随着时间的推移,语言往往会消除不规则之处。 (还有其他力量会定期将新的不规则之处引入任何语言,因此这是一个持续的过程。)例如,某种语言的使用者通常会将模式从一组形式扩展为一种例外形式。动词fell的过去式(如to fell a tree)是felled ; shell的过去式是shelled。swell 的过去式曾经是swal,但现在使用常规过去式标记 - ed来表示变成swelled:他的胸膛因自豪而肿胀。元音变化在较旧的过去分词和形容词形式swollen中保留了下来:a swollen ankle。
Languages are flexible, open, adapting systems, but they also exhibit many mechanisms for maintaining their integrity and regularity, in order to enable their speakers to continue to communicate (relatively) efficiently throughout all those changes. This cognitive motivation is known to anyone who has ever tried to learn a second language; a regular pattern is easier to learn than a pattern with lots of exceptions. Children acquiring their native languages prefer regular patterns too, and over time languages tend to erase irregularities. (There are other forces which periodically introduce new irregularities into any language, so this is an ongoing process.) For example, speakers of a language will often extend a pattern from one set of forms to an exceptional form. The past tense of the verb fell (as in to fell a tree) is felled; the past tense of shell is shelled. The past tense of swell used to be swal, but now uses the regular past-tense marker -ed as to become swelled: His chest swelled with pride. The vowel change survives in the older past participle and adjectival form swollen: a swollen ankle.
语言的变化往往是由于与另一种语言使用者的接触而发生的,这是一种重要的社会力量。有时一种语言的使用者会征服另一种语言的使用者,并在一段时间内将征服语言强加给被征服者,例如诺曼征服英格兰的情况。被征服语言社区的成员会积极使用征服者的语言来获取被征服者控制的社会资源(权力、财富、教育等)。随着时间的推移,征服者的词汇会补充或取代被征服语言中的相应词汇。例如,英语使用者从法语征服者那里获得了表示美食的新词汇。在古英语中,动物和其肉的词是相同的。但诺曼人吃猪肉和羊肉,因此英语也获得了这种语义上的区别:中世纪英国农民饲养猪和羊,但吃猪肉和羊肉。
Languages often change as a result of contact with speakers of another language, an important social force. Sometimes the speakers of one language conquer the speakers of another and impose the conquering language on the conquered for a time, as in the case of the Norman Conquest of England. Members of the conquered speech community are motivated to use the language of their conquerors to gain access to social resources (power, wealth, education, etc.) which are controlled by the conquerors. Over time, the conqueror’s words supplement or replace the corresponding words in the conquered language. For example, English speakers acquired new words for cuisine from their French-speaking conquerors. In Old English, the words for animals and for their meat were the same. But Normans ate porc and mouton, so English gained this semantic distinction, too: Middle English farmers raised pigs and sheep, but ate pork and mutton.
借贷 也可以是语言之间经济和文化接触的结果,比如一个语言社区采用(或改编)另一种语言中新发明或概念的名称。例如,当日本人开始采用棒球这项运动时,它的名称就被借用并改编为besuboru ,以适应日语的音系和音节结构。这样的借词使原始词适应借用语言的音系限制。英语作为国际通用语(通用语言)的传播很大程度上是通过科学和技术领域,在这些领域,其他语言的使用者更容易采用新概念和发明的英语名称(例如,television、computer、dot com),而不是创造自己的名称。
Borrowing can also result from economic and cultural contact between languages, as when one speech community adopts (or adapts) the name for a new invention or concept from another language. For example, when the sport of baseball was adopted by the Japanese, its name was borrowed and adapted to Japanese phonology and syllable structure as besuboru. Such loan words adapt the original word to the phonological constraints of the borrowing language. Much of the spread of English as an international lingua franca (common language) has been through the domains of science and technology, where it has been easier for speakers of other languages to adopt the English names of new concepts and inventions (for example, television, computer, dot com) than to coin their own.
语言的各个方面都会随着时间而改变,包括语言社区正确使用语言的规范,但历史语言学家关注四种类型的语言变化:音系变化、形态变化、句法变化和语义变化。由于语言的子系统相互依存,因此一个子系统的变化会引发其他子系统变化的连锁反应。
All facets of a language change over time, including a speech community’s norms for appropriately using the language, but historical linguists focus on four types of language change: phonological change, morphological change, syntactic change, and semantic change. Because the subsystems of language are interdependent, a change in one subsystem can initiate a chain reaction of changes in other subsystems.
人类的起源语言的起源被笼罩在史前迷雾之中。通过对原始语言的重建,我们知道人类早在有记载的历史之前就已经开始说话,但我们不知道语言究竟何时开始发展。然而,正如《 纽约时报》的一篇文章(《早期声音:语言的飞跃》作者:尼古拉斯·韦德,2003 年 7 月 15 日)所总结的那样,动物交流、考古学和遗传学领域的最新研究提供了一些线索。
The origins of human language are shrouded in the mists of prehistory. From reconstructions of protolanguages we know that human beings were speaking long before recorded history, but we don’t know just when language first developed. However, as summarized in an article in the New York Times (“Early Voices: The Leap to Language” by Nicholas Wade, July 15, 2003), recent research from the fields of animal communication, archaeology, and genetics provides a few clues.
比克顿认为,语言发展背后的推动力可能是交流脱离语境的信息的需求。能够交流更复杂信息的个人和群体具有巨大的选择优势,足以解释语言传播速度之快。能够分享食物来源位置信息的食物采集者会非常受欢迎,能够规划和监督更成功狩猎的猎人也会非常受欢迎。发展了语言的早期人类群体在与未发展语言的群体发生冲突时也具有独特且往往致命的优势,从而促进了语言的传播。
Bickerton believes that the need to communicate decontextualized information may have been the motivating force behind the development of language. The selective advantage for individuals – and groups – who could communicate more complex information would have been tremendous – great enough to account for the apparently rapid spread of language. Food gatherers who could share information about the location of food sources would have been very popular, as would hunters who could plan and supervise more successful hunts. Groups of early humans who had developed language would also have a distinct and often lethal advantage in conflicts with groups who had not developed language, facilitating the spread of language.
KE 家族的语言障碍极为罕见,因为 FOXP2 基因蛋白质序列的任何变化几乎总是致命的。德国莱比锡马克斯·普朗克进化人类学研究所的 Svante Paabo 博士及其同事发现,自 600 万年前类人猿与其他灵长类动物分离以来,FOXP2 蛋白质序列仅发生过两次变化。FOXP2 的第二次变化似乎发生在大约 10 万年前,当时现代人类尚未从非洲传播开来。这些基因变化席卷了整个人类群体,表明它们赋予了一些巨大的选择优势——比如能够非常快速地产生和解释复杂的单词和句子。如果 KE 家族的语言障碍代表了变化前的人类基因组,那么 FOXP2 可能是语言的遗传钥匙。通过绘制 FOXP2 在胎儿发育过程中启动的其他基因,然后追踪这些基因控制的大脑区域,研究人员可能能够确定神经基础的语言。
The language disorder of the KE family is extremely rare because any change in the FOXP2 gene’s protein sequence is almost always fatal. Dr. Svante Paabo and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, found that there have been just two changes in the FOXP2 protein sequence since six million years ago, when the hominid species broke off from other primates. The second change in FOXP2 seems to have taken place about 100,000 years ago, before modern humans spread out from Africa. These genetic changes swept through the human population, suggesting that they conferred some large selective advantage – like the ability to produce and interpret complex words and sentences very rapidly. If the KE family’s language disorder represents the pre-change human genome, FOXP2 may be the genetic key to language. By mapping the other genes that FOXP2 switches on in fetal development and then tracing the areas of the brain that these genes control, researchers may be able to identify the neural basis of language.
音系变化是指语言语音系统的任何变化,特别是音素及其分布。事实上,语言语音系统的所有元素(音节结构、声调和重音模式)都会随着时间而变化,但历史语言学家往往关注音段音系的变化。
Phonological change refers to any change in the sound system of a language – particularly its phonemes and their distribution. In fact, all elements of a language’s sound system – syllable structure, tones, and stress patterns – change over time, but historical linguists tend to focus on changes in segmental phonology.
大多数声音变化都是从音素表面发音中细小但有规律的变化开始的,这些变化是由其直接的语音背景所激发或决定的。例如,在许多方言中西班牙语中的 [n] 最终变为 [ ŋ ] 一词。过去发音为 [son] 和 [bjen] 的son(他们是)和bien (嗯,非常)等词现在在这些方言中发音为 [so ŋ ] 和 [bje ŋ ]。然而,这仅仅是语音/同位音的变化,因为新的声音 [ ŋ ] 与 [n] 并不形成对比;没有仅在使用 [n] 或 [ ŋ ] 声音方面有所不同的单词对。
Most sound changes start out as small but regular variations in a phoneme’s surface articulation which are motivated, or conditioned, by its immediate phonetic context. For example, in many dialects of Spanish [n] has changed to [ŋ] word finally. Words such as son ‘they are’ and bien ‘well, very,’ which used to be pronounced [son] and [bjen], are now pronounced [soŋ] and [bjeŋ] in these dialects. This is, however, merely a phonetic/allophonic change, since the new sound [ŋ] does not contrast with [n]; there are no pairs of words which differ only in using the [n] or [ŋ] sound.
许多音系变化都是从语音变化开始的——有限的音位变体规则(通常简化发音或提高音素的显著性);但经过一代又一代的使用者,其中一些规则同位音本身就变成了对比音素,改变了语言的音位库,并导致了音系变化。(而且,声音变化通常会引发语言的音系、形态甚至句法的后续变化。)例如,在早期古英语(公元 449-700 年)中,音素 /f θ s/ 随处发音为 [f θ s](即清音)。大约公元 700 年,古英语使用者开始在这些擦音出现在浊音之间时将其发浊音(将清音 /f θ s/ 同化为周围的浊音)。这种音位变体产生了新的音位变体 [v ð z],一代又一代的(后来的)古英语使用者将其理解为各自的底层清音 /f θ s/。因此,在表 8.1中,five发音为 [fi:f],fifth发音为 [fi:fta],因为 /f/ 音素周围没有浊音。但古英语中表示海怪的单词在公元 700 年之前发音为 [fi:f ɛ l],后来发音为 [fi:v ɛ l],因为第二个 /f/ 音素发音于:并被其周围的浊音(在此情况下为元音)同化。同样,baths和titmouse中的 / θ / 和 /s/ 音素在被其周围的元音同化时也变为浊音([bɑðʊ ]和[mɑ : zɛ ])。后期古英语使用者的音系学包括前辈音系学所没有的同位音规则,公元 700 年以后的几代使用者在成长过程中,每当周围有浊音元素时,就会有规律地(无意识地)发出底层清音音素 /fθs /的浊音。
Many phonological changes start out as phonetic changes – limited allophonic rules (often simplifying articulation or improving the salience of a phoneme); but over successive generations of speakers some of these allophones become contrastive phonemes in their own right, changing the phonemic inventory of the language and resulting in phonological change. (And often, sound changes spark subsequent changes in the phonology, morphology, and even syntax of the language.) For example, in early Old English (449–700 CE) the phonemes /f θ s/ were pronounced [f θ s] (that is, unvoiced) everywhere. About 700 CE, Old English speakers were voicing these fricatives whenever they occurred between voiced sounds (assimilating the unvoiced phonemes /f θ s/ to the surrounding voiced phonemes). This allophonic change produced the new allophones [v ð z], which generations of (later) Old English speakers understood as their respective underlying unvoiced phonemes /f θ s/. So, in Table 8.1, five was pronounced [fi:f] and fifth was pronounced [fi:fta] because the /f/ phonemes were not surrounded by voiced sounds. But the Old English Word for sea monster, which had been pronounced [fi:fɛl] before 700 CE, was later pronounced [fi:vɛl], because the second /f/ phoneme was articulated between, and assimilated to, its surrounding voiced sounds (in this case, vowels). Likewise, the /θ/ and /s/ phonemes in baths and titmouse became voiced ([bɑðʊ] and [mɑ:zɛ]) as they assimilated to their surrounding vowels. The phonology of later Old English speakers included an allophonic rule that their predecessors’ phonology did not have, and generations of speakers after 700 CE grew up regularly (and unconsciously) voicing the underlying unvoiced phonemes /f θ s/ whenever they were surrounded by voiced elements.
| 菲:菲 | [fi:f] | '五' | 菲:菲尔 | [fi:v ε l] | “海怪” |
| 自由贸易协定 | [fi:ft ɑ ] | '第五' | |||
| 巴埃特 | [bæ θ ] | '洗澡' | 巴图 | [b ɑ ð ʊ ] | ‘浴室’ |
| 所以:那 | [所以:n ɑ ] | '立即地' | 马瑟 | [ mɑ : zε ] | 山雀 |
| 胡: | [胡:斯] | '房子' |
这些浊音同位音在中古英语 (1100-1500) 和早期现代英语中成为独立的音素。我们怎么知道的?在古英语中,浊擦音 [v ð z] 仅在两个浊音之间发音时作为音素 /f θ s/ 的同位音出现,但它们开始出现在同位音“擦音浊音规则”不适用的新环境中(即,不仅仅是在浊音之间)。
These voiced allophones became independent phonemes in Middle English (1100–1500) and early Modern English. How do we know this? In Old English the voiced fricatives [v ð z] had appeared only as allophones of the phonemes /f θ s/ when pronounced between two voiced sounds, but they started appearing in new environments in which the allophonic “fricative voicing rule” did not apply (that is, not just between voiced sounds).
一些以 [v ð z] 开头的单词是从法语和斯堪的纳维亚语中借用的,例如very、vanity、voice、zenith、zone(来自法语)和they、them、their(来自古挪威语)。此外,非重读单词中的首字母 [ θ ],例如the、this,通过轻化变为浊音 [ð]。最后,最后的 -e [ ǝ ],如give、lose和bathe,不再发音(尽管它在书面拼写中仍保留为“静音 e ”),但最后的擦音的浊音保留了下来。
Words were borrowed from French and Scandinavian which had [v ð z] at the beginning, such as very, vanity, voice, zenith, zone (from French) and they, them, their (from Old Norse). In addition, the initial [θ] in unstressed words, such as the, this, became voiced [ð] through lenition. And finally, the final -e [ǝ], as in give, lose, and bathe, was no longer pronounced (although it survived in written spelling as the “silent e”) but the voicing on the final fricatives remained.
由于这些声音的变化和借用后,古英语的浊擦音不再只是浊环境中清擦音的同位音,而是出现在重叠环境中,浊擦音和清擦音变成了对比音(即可以用来表示意义的差异)。中世纪英语使用者不再将浊擦音 [v ð z] “听”为音素 /f θ s/ 的音位变体,而是将其视为新的对比音素。英语音素清单及其关系已经发生变化。在语言的音素清单中添加新音素是音位变化的一个例子。
As a result of these sound changes and borrowings, the voiced fricatives of Old English were no longer simply allophones of voiceless fricatives in a voiced environment but rather occurred in overlapping environments and the voiced and voiceless fricatives became contrastive (that is, could be used to indicate a difference in meaning). Generations of Middle English speakers no longer “heard” the voiced fricatives [v ð z] as allophones of the phonemes /f θ s/, but as new, contrastive phonemes in their own right. The inventory of English phonemes and their relations had changed. The addition of new phonemes to the phonemic inventory of a language is one example of phonological change.
形态变化是指语言的形态音位系统(形态素及其音位表示)的任何变化。英语中最显著的变化之一涉及名词的形态标记,以指示某些类型的信息。古英语,如现代俄语允许相对自由的词序。句子的主语可以出现在动词之前或之后(也可以出现在动词之前)。古英语中,名词的变格形式包括:在直接宾语后加格(或直接宾语后加格)。为了表明特定名词在句子中的作用(即与动词和其他名词的关系),每个名词都标有格尾。古英语名词的变格形式包括:主格、宾格、属格、与格、单数和复数工具格。例如,/g ɹʊ nd/“ground”的变格形式如下:
Morphological change refers to any change in the morphophonemic system (the morphemes and their phonemic representation) of a language. One of the most dramatic changes in the English language involved how nouns were morphologically marked to indicate certain kinds of information. Old English, like Modern Russian, allowed relatively free word order. The subject of a sentence could appear before or after the verb (and before or after the direct object), for example. To indicate the role of a particular noun in a sentence – its relation to the verb and other nouns – every noun was marked with a case ending. Old English nouns were inflected with endings denoting a variety of cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental singular and plural. For example, /gɹʊnd/ ‘ground’ was inflected as follows:
| 单数 | 复数 | ||
| 主格和宾格 | /g ɹʊ nd/ | /g ɹʊ nd ɑ s/ | ‘地面/地面’ |
| 属格 | /g ɹʊ nd ɛ s/ | / gɹʊ nd ɑ / | ‘理由’ |
| 与格和工具 | / gɹʊ nd ɛ / | /g ɹʊ nd ʊ m/ | ‘以……为依据 / 以……为依据’ |
另一个音位变化的例子是前古英语中称为变音的音素变化。在变音中,当后元音后面跟着前元音 /i/ 或下一个音节中的前半元音 /y/ 时,后元音会变前。因此,后元音 [ ʊu :o:] 变为前元音 [ ʊ̈ü :ö:]。下表中的古英语单词及其前古英语来源说明了其中一些变化。(前古英语来源标有星号,表示这些是重建的形式,而不是经过证实的形式。)
For another example of phonemic change, consider a sound change in pre-Old English known as umlaut. In umlauting, a back vowel was fronted when followed by the front vowel /i/ or the front semivowel /y/ in the following syllable. Thus, the back vowels [ʊ u: o:] changed to the front vowels [ʊ̈ ü: ö:]. The Old English words and their pre-Old English sources in the table below illustrate some of these changes. (The pre-Old English sources are marked with an asterisk to indicate that these are reconstructed, not attested, forms.)
这种声音变化产生了前音位变体 [ ʊ̈ ü: ö:],这些声音以前并不存在,分别来自音素 / ʊ u: o:/。这只是一个语音或音位变体变化,但后来在古英语中它变成了音位。通过一个不相关的变化,后面的非重读前元音 /i/ 和半元音 /y/(它们决定了变音变化)消失了,但变音元音保留了下来。新一代听到了他们长辈的变音元音,但不再认识到它们与后元音音素有关。语言社区用于构词的对比声音的音位资源模型已经改变。变音元音 [ü: ö:] 现在与其他元音形成对比,例如 /mu:s/“mouse”/mü:s/“mice”和 /go:s/“goose”/gö:s/“geese”,并成为独立音素 /ü: ö:/。后来,到了中世纪英语,/ü: ö:/ 变为 /i: e:/ 并与现有音素 /i: e:/ 合并,这些音素出现在 /wi:f/“wife”和 /be:t ɛ /“beet”中。一旦变音成为音素,它就会产生成对的异形交替,例如 /mu:s/“mouse”/mi:s/“mice”和 /go:s/“goose”/ge:s/“geese”。有了所有这些变化,你就可以开始明白为什么你无法理解说话者 古老的英语!
This sound change created the front allophones [ʊ̈ ü: ö:], sounds that did not exist earlier, from the phonemes /ʊ u: o:/, respectively. This was a mere phonetic or allophonic change, but later in Old English it became phonemic. Through an unrelated change, the following unaccented front vowel /i/ and the semivowel /y/ – which had conditioned the umlaut change – were lost, but the umlauted vowels remained. New generations heard the umlauted vowels of their elders, but no longer recognized that they were related to the back vowel phonemes. The speech community’s model of their phonemic resources of contrastive sounds for building words had changed. The umlauted vowels [ü: ö:] now contrasted with other vowels, e.g. /mu:s/ ‘mouse’ /mü:s/ ‘mice’ and /go:s/ ‘goose’ /gö:s/ ‘geese,’ and became independent phonemes /ü: ö:/. Later, by Middle English, /ü: ö:/ changed to /i: e:/ and merged with the existing phonemes /i: e:/ occurring in /wi:f/ ‘wife’ and /be:tɛ/ ‘beet.’ Once the umlaut became phonemic, it produced allomorphic alternations attested in pairs such as /mu:s/ ‘mouse’ /mi:s/ ‘mice’ and /go:s/ ‘goose’ /ge:s/ ‘geese.’ With all these changes, you can begin to see why you would be unable to understand a speaker of Old English!
中古英语中格区别开始消失,当时古英语非重读属格复数 /- ɑ /、与格单数 /- ɛ / 和与格/工具复数 /- ʊ m/ 结尾都缩减为单数结尾 /- ɛ /。最后的 /- ɛ / 随后缩减为 /- ǝ /,然后在早期现代英语中完全消失了。由于这些声音的变化,到现代英语(约1700 年)时,格变位系统几乎完全消失了。单数和复数今天仍然有形态标记,但没有名词格的形态线索(无论它是句子中动词的主语还是宾语,宾语的接受者等)。唯一仍然有标记的格是属格(所有格) 结束。
Case distinction began to be lost in Middle English, when the Old English unstressed genitive plural /-ɑ/, dative singular /-ɛ/, and dative/instrumental plural /-ʊm/ endings collapsed into the single ending /-ɛ/. The final /-ɛ/ subsequently reduced to /-ǝ/ and then was completely lost in early Modern English. Because of these sound changes, by the time of Modern English (c. 1700) the system of case inflection was almost entirely lost. Singular and plural are still morphologically marked today, but there is no morphological clue to a noun’s case (whether it is the subject or object of the verb in a sentence, recipient of the object, etc.). The one case which is still marked is the genitive (possessive)’s ending.
句法变化是指语言语法系统的改变。一旦格不再被标记,屈折词缀,说话者中世纪英语必须找到其他方式来表明句子中每个名词相对于动词和其他名词所起的作用。由于古英语具有丰富的格标记系统,因此允许相对自由的词序。简单句通常将主语放在首位,然后是动词,然后是宾语 (SVO),但在许多情况下,动词在首位 (VSO) 或宾语在动词之前 (SOV)。随着格标记系统的消失,中世纪英语的词序逐渐固定为 SVO,因此说话者可以在从句中指示名词的语法关系。
Syntactic change refers to change in the grammatical system of a language. Once case was no longer marked by inflectional affixes, speakers of Middle English had to find some other way of indicating the role each noun played in a sentence in relation to the verb and to other nouns. Old English, because it had a rich case-marking system, had allowed relatively free word order. Simple sentences usually put the subject first, followed by the verb and then the object (SVO), but in a number of circumstances the verb came first (VSO) or the object came before the verb (SOV). As the case-marking system was lost, word order in Middle English became increasingly fixed as SVO, so speakers could indicate the grammatical relations of nouns in clauses.
语义变化主要涉及词语含义的变化。这些变化通常是渐进的,可以追溯到历史。如果存在早期文献,语言学家可以根据上下文中的用法推断出单词的含义。例如,现代英语单词nice和silly的含义就是语义变化的结果。在拉丁语中, ne(不)加上动词sci:-re(知道)的组合产生了nescius,意为“无知”。它在古法语中以nice 的形式存在,意为“懒惰、简单”。然后它被借用到中世纪英语中,成为nice ,意为“愚蠢、简单、挑剔、美味”。在现代英语中,它的含义仅为积极的(“令人愉快的”、“有礼貌的”)。古英语中silly的形式为sælig [sæl I y],意为“幸福的、幸运的”。在中世纪英语中,它变为seli [s ε l I ] 或sili [s I l I ],意为“可怜的、无辜的”。在现代英语中,silly 的意思是“愚蠢的”、“轻浮的”、“茫然的”。
Semantic change is mainly concerned with changes in the meanings of words. These changes are usually incremental and can be traced historically. Where documents exist from earlier times, linguists can infer the meaning of a word from its use in context. For example, the meanings of the Modern English words nice and silly are the results of odysseys of semantic change. In Latin the combination of ne ‘not’ plus the verb sci:-re ‘to know’ resulted in nescius, meaning ‘ignorant.’ It survived as nice, meaning ‘lazy, simple,’ in Old French. It was then borrowed into Middle English as nice, where it meant ‘foolish, simple, fastidious, delicious.’ In Modern English its meanings are solely positive (‘enjoyable,’ ‘polite’). The form for silly in Old English was sælig [sælIy] and meant ‘blessed, fortunate.’ In Middle English it changed to seli [sεlI] or sili [sIlI] with the meaning of ‘pitiable, innocent.’ In Modern English, silly means ‘stupid,’ ‘frivolous,’ ‘dazed.’
词语的意义可以以各种方式改变。随着语言社区对世界的经验和理解发生变化,事物的词语(以及事物之间的差异和关系)也可能发生变化。新词可能会为新物体和新概念而创造的词(如电视和X射线),但语言社区通常会调整现有词语的含义。在扩大化过程中,单词的含义范围会增加。例如,在中世纪英语中,bird的意思是“幼鸟”;随着发音的变化,在现代英语中,它的含义扩大到整个属,鸟类。转喻是一种特殊的扩展,其中指代与语义域相关的特征或概念的词用于表示整个域。例如,银从指金属扩展到指“用银制成、镀银或用银色金属制成的餐具或其他家居用品”。虽然它的使用正在减少,但如今银可以指用任何金属。一个词的意义范围可以减少,变得不那么普遍,这是因为范围缩小。例如,古英语hund ‘狗’缩小为现代英语hound,以指代‘特定品种的狗’。
The meanings of words can change in a variety of ways. As the experience and understanding of the world of a speech community change, the words for things (and differences and relations between things) may change as well. New words may be coined for new objects and concepts (like television and x-rays), but often speech communities adapt the meanings of existing words. In broadening, the range of meaning of a word increases. For example, in Middle English bird meant ‘young bird’; along with a change in pronunciation, in Modern English its meaning broadened to the entire genus, bird. Metonymy is a particular kind of broadening, in which a word referring to a characteristic or concept associated with a semantic domain is used to represent the entire domain. For example, silver extended from referring to the metal to mean also ‘items of tableware or other household goods that are made of silver, coated with silver plate, or made of silver colored metal.’ Although its use is waning, nowadays silver can refer to dining utensils made from any metal. The range of meaning of a word can decrease and become less general, by the process of narrowing. So, for example, Old English hund ‘dog’ narrowed to Modern English hound to refer to ‘a particular breed of dog.’
词义的评价维度也会发生变化,产生新的消极或积极联想。在贬义中,一个词的含义具有负面价值。考虑一下 情妇的当前含义,它最初是借用了古法语maistresse(统治的女人)。语义变化有时可以揭示社会态度;请注意,master(来自古法语maistre (统治的男人))没有mistress的性含义。当然,一个词的含义也可以变得更好。在改善中,一个词的含义获得了更积极的价值。例如,现代英语 pretty源自古英语prætig(欺骗性的,狡猾的)。
The evaluative dimension of a word’s meaning can also change, acquiring new negative or positive associations. In pejoration, the meaning of a word acquires a negative value. Consider the current meaning of mistress, which was originally a borrowing from Old French maistresse ‘a woman who rules.’ Semantic changes are sometimes revealing of social attitudes; notice that master (from Old French maistre ‘a man who rules’) has none of the sexual meaning of mistress. Of course, the meaning of a word can also take a turn for the better. In amelioration, the meaning of a word acquires a more positive value. For example, Modern English pretty came from Old English prætig ‘deceitful, tricky.’
词语含义的改变是因为人们创造性地使用语言。有时含义的改变是出于隐喻是指对两件事或情况相似性的感知。例如,英语 grave “悲伤、严肃”最初意为“沉重”(来自拉丁语gravis)。在梵语中,guru “重”隐喻性地获得了第二个含义,“有分量的、重要的、值得尊敬的人”。 (只有第二个含义才被借用到英语中,并成为知识渊博的人。)同样,在省略中,一个单词会承担整个短语的意义,例如一份日报变成一份日报,一幅毕加索的画变成一幅毕加索,一名士兵变成一名士兵。正如在短语a daily和a private中看到的那样,其中形容词daily和private变成了名词,省略可能导致单词的语法类别发生变化。英语bus是这种变化的另一个例子:它是拉丁语omnibus “for everyone”的缩写形式,其中拉丁语格结尾(与格/离格复数 - bus)被词汇化为名词。
Words change meaning because people use language creatively. Sometimes a change in meaning is motivated by metaphor, the perception of similarity between two things or situations. For example English grave ‘sad, serious’ originally meant ‘heavy’ (from Latin gravis). In Sanskrit, guru ‘heavy’ metaphorically acquired a second meaning, ‘weighty, important, a person worthy of honor.’ (Only the second meaning was then borrowed into English and has come to mean knowledgeable person.) Similarly, in ellipsis, a word takes the meaning of a whole phrase, e.g. a daily paper becomes a daily, a painting by Picasso becomes a Picasso, and a private soldier becomes a private. As is seen in the phrases a daily and a private, in which the adjectives daily and private have become nouns, ellipsis may lead to a change in the grammatical category of words. English bus is another example of such change: it is a shortened form of the Latin omnibus ‘for everybody,’ in which a Latin case ending (dative/ablative pl. -bus) has been lexicalized as a noun.
语法化是指词汇词素转变为语法词素的语义变化。一个明显的例子是英语词汇词素will,它以前表示“想要”。其原意可见于have the will [愿望]、good will [愿望、欲望]、if you will [想要] 等短语中。它的德语同源词will “(他/她) 想要”仍然以相同含义出现。但是随着“想要”意义的丧失,英语will被语法化为“将来时”标记,并且由于语法化形式通常表现出语音侵蚀或缩减,它表现出诸如I'll、she'll、the man'll be there 等缩写。许多语言中的屈折后缀通常是经过语法化的独立词。古匈牙利语格标记 - bele,如vilagbele “走进世界”及其简化形式-ba,出现在现代匈牙利语vilagba中,最初是词汇词素bele “勇气,核心”。法语派生后缀 - ment,如doucement “轻轻地”、“轻柔地”、“顺利地”,最初是拉丁语名词,如dulce mente “心地善良”。英语介词from起源于古英语fram “强壮的,好的”,字面意思是“向前”。语法词素通常就是这样起源的,自由名词变成了副词、词缀和介词。
Grammaticalization refers to a semantic change in which a lexical morpheme is transformed into a grammatical morpheme. An obvious example is the English lexical morpheme will, which earlier meant ‘want.’ Evidence of its original meaning is seen in phrases such a have the will [desire], good will [wishes, desires], if you will [want to]. Its German cognate will ‘(he/she) wants’ still occurs with the same meaning. But with the loss of its sense of ‘want’ English will was grammaticalized as a ‘future’ marker, and since grammaticalized forms often show phonetic erosion or reduction, it shows contractions such as I’ll, she’ll, the man’ll be there. The inflectional suffixes in many languages were often independent words that have been grammaticalized. The Old Hungarian lative case marker -bele, as in vilagbele ‘into the world’ and its reduced form -ba, which occurs in Modern Hungarian vilagba, was originally a lexical morpheme bele ‘guts, core.’ The French derivational suffix -ment, in doucement ‘gently,’ ‘softly,’ smoothly,’ was originally a noun in Latin, as in dulce mente ‘with a sweet mind.’ The English preposition from has its origin in the Old English fram ‘strong, good,’ literally ‘forward.’ This is how grammatical morphemes often originate and free nouns become adverbs, affixes, and prepositions.
当后缀、复合词或短语的一部分变成独立的单词时,这个过程称为词汇化。它们必须作为独立的单词单独学习。这方面的例子可以在拉丁语与格/离格复数后缀bus的词汇化中看到,该后缀由缩写omnibus变为名词bus。英语词汇化的其他例子有ism(共产主义)、teen(青少年)、daily(日报)、drive-in(汽车影院)。
When suffixes, parts of compounds, or phrases become independent words, the process is called lexicalization. They have to be learned separately as independent words. Examples of this can be seen in the lexicalization of the Latin dative/ablative plural suffix -bus as the noun bus from the shortened omnibus. Other examples of lexicalization in English are ism (communism), teen (teen-ager), daily (daily newspaper), drive-in (drive-in theater).
我们已经看到,声音变化会导致形态和句法变化;声音变化也会导致语义变化。当英语中的非重读元音消失时,古英语 [é:are]“耳朵”和 [é:ar]“带壳的植物谷粒”在语音上变得相似,而且由于指称物有些相似,现代英语使用者认为谷穗与植物的耳朵有隐喻关系动物。
We have seen that a sound change can lead to morphological and syntactic changes; a sound change can result in semantic change as well. When unstressed vowels in English were lost, the Old English [é:are] ‘ear’ and [é:ar] ‘grain of a plant with the husk on it,’ became phonetically alike, and since the referents have some resemblance, speakers of Modern English assume that an ear of grain is metaphorically related to the ear of an animal.
There are three main mechanisms creating language change: sound change, borrowing, and analogical creation.
音變 是语言社区成员发特定声音的方式的变化;这种变化是持续发生的,但速度很慢。声音变化导致音系变化(语言音系的变化)。追踪声音变化有助于语言学家确定语言之间的相关性并重建不再使用的语言,以及区分外来词(如dentist和pedestrian)与本土词(如oth和foot)。
Sound change is a change in the way members of a speech community pronounce particular sounds; it takes place constantly but slowly. Sound changes result in phonological changes (changes to the phonology of the language). Tracing sound changes helps linguists to determine relatedness among languages and reconstruct languages no longer spoken, and to distinguish loan words such as dentist and pedestrian from native words such as tooth and foot.
大多数声音变化都依赖于语音环境,或受语音环境制约。语音制约的变化与所有语言中(共时)发现的音位变体规则完全相同。正如我们之前所见,古英语中摩擦音的发声受当清擦音被浊音包围时,清擦音会被同化。另一个条件性声音变化的例子是音素 /k/ 发生的情况,拉丁语演变为法语。如表 8.2(拉丁语和法语的拼写)所示,拉丁语 /k/ 在 /e/ 前变为 /s/,/ ʃ / 在 /a/ 前变为 /s/,而在 /o/ 或其他辅音前保持不变。
Most sound changes are dependent on, or conditioned by, phonetic environment. Phonetically conditioned changes are exactly like the allophonic rules found (synchronically) in all languages. As we saw earlier, the voicing of fricatives in Old English was conditioned by the assimilation of the unvoiced fricative when surrounded by voiced sounds. Another example of a conditioned sound change is what happened to the phoneme /k/ as Latin evolved into French. As shown in Table 8.2 (which presents Latin and French spellings), Latin /k/ changed to /s/ before /e/, /ʃ/ before /a/, and remained unchanged before /o/ or before another consonant.
| (a)拉丁语 /k/ 法语 /k/ | (b)拉丁语 /k/ 法语 /s/ | (c)拉丁语 /k/ 法语 / ʃ / | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 科尔 | 科尔 | '心' | 百 | 分 | '百' | 坎塔雷 | 吟唱者 | '唱歌' |
| 克拉鲁斯 | 克莱尔 | '清除' | 鹿 | 中央应急基金 | ‘哈特’ | 碳水化合物 | 炭 | '煤炭' |
| 当 | 週 | '什么时候' | 西尼斯 | 灰烬 | ‘灰烬’ | 原因 | 选择 | '事物' |
不是所有的声音变化都受特定语音环境的影响。有时变化更为广泛,涉及几个相关的声音。例如,非条件性声音变化,考虑被称为大元音推移的一系列变化,其中中世纪英语在早期现代英语中无条件但系统地发展起来。以下例子取自中世纪英语(乔叟 1340-1400 年)、早期现代英语(莎士比亚 1564-1616 年)和现代英语。
Not all sound changes are conditioned by a specific phonetic environment. Sometimes the changes are much more extensive, involving several related sounds. As an example of an unconditioned sound change, consider the series of changes known as the Great Vowel Shift in which the long vowels of Middle English were unconditionally but systematically raised in Early Modern English. The following examples are taken from Middle English (Chaucer 1340–1400), Early Modern English (Shakespeare 1564–1616), and Modern English.
如表 8.3和图 8.1所示,低中元音 /a:/ 和低前元音 /æ:/ 升高然后合并为 /e:/,中前元音 /e:/ 升高为 /i:/。低后元音 / ɔ :/ 升高为 /o:/,中古英语 /o:/ 升高为 /u:/。由于中古英语 /i:/ 和 /u:/ 已经很高,它们分别变为双元音 /ay/ 和 /aw/。导致英语元音系统发生这种全面转变的原因仍有争议,但这可能是出于对更易于发音和区分元音的需求。每种语言都倾向于最大限度地提高其声音的可辨别性,以尽量减少意义的歧义。大元音推移之前的英语元音数量相对较多,这似乎导致了可用的音系“空间”的“过度拥挤”。这种过度拥挤造成了意义的歧义(“他指的是‘小马驹’还是‘傻瓜’?”),一代又一代的英语使用者逐渐改变发音,使意思更清晰。当然,在有限的音位空间中将一个元音移到另一个发音位置会产生新的语音冲突(“他指的是‘傻瓜’还是‘犯规’?”),并最终产生一整套相关声音移動。
As Table 8.3 and Figure 8.1 show, the low-central vowel /a:/ and the low front vowel /æ:/ raised and then merged to /e:/, and the mid-front vowel /e:/ raised to /i:/. The low back vowel /ɔ:/ raised to /o:/, and Middle English /o:/ shifted up to /u:/. Since Middle English /i:/ and /u:/ were already high, they changed into the diphthongs /ay/ and /aw/, respectively. What caused this wholesale shift in the English vowel system is still debated, but it may have been motivated by a need for greater ease of articulation and discrimination among the vowels. Every language tends to maximize the discriminability of its sounds, in order to minimize ambiguities of meaning. English before the Great Vowel Shift had a relatively large number of vowels, which seems to have led to “overcrowding” of the available phonological “space.” Such overcrowding creates ambiguities of meaning (“Did he mean a ‘foal’ or a ‘fool’?”) and generations of speakers of English incrementally shifted their pronunciation to make their meanings clearer. Of course, shifting one vowel to another articulatory position in a limited phonological space can create a new phonetic conflict (“Did he mean a ‘fool’ or a ‘foul’?”) and eventually a whole set of related sounds shifted.
| 中古英语(乔叟) | 早期现代(莎士比亚) | 现代英语 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 姓名 | [一个:] | 姓名 | [æ ˡ ] | 姓名 | [电子:] |
| 贝特 | [电子:] | 甜菜 | [我:] | 甜菜 | [我:] |
| 驹 | [ ɔ :] | 驹 | [音:] | 驹 | [音:] |
| 福尔 | [音:] | 傻子 | [呃:] | 傻子 | [呃:] |
| 咬 | [我:] | 咬 | [ ǝ i] | 咬 | [ aɪ ] |
| 犯规 | [呃:] | 犯规 | [ ǝ u] | 犯规 | [阿ʊ ] |
声音变化可能引发一系列称为链式转变的变化。元音大推移是声音变化的推链的一个例子。乔叟时代较早的长元音 /a:/ 在莎士比亚时代变为 /æ:/(/na:m ǝ / → /næ:m/“名字”)。与最后一个元音的消失相结合,元音质量的这种变化造成了最小对之间的歧义,因为两个以前以元音区分的单词现在用相同的元音发音。(想象一下,如果现代英语单词pat、sat和bat的发音与pet、set和bet 的发音相同,会造成多大的混乱。)这些歧义将原来的 /æ:/ 推到了 /e:/(/bæ:t ǝ / → /be:t/“节拍”——后来改为 /bi:t/)。这就产生了一组新的歧义,将原来的 /e:/ 推到了 /i:/(/be:t ǝ / → /bi:t/ 'beet'),又产生了另一组歧义,将原来的 /i:/ 推到了 / ǝ i/(/bi:t ǝ / → /b ǝ it/'咬')。这最后一步实际上在音系中创造了一个新的音素——双元音 /ay/。类似地,圆唇元音 /o:/ 变为 /o:/(/f ɔ :l/ → /fo:l/ '小马'),并将原来的 /o:/ 推到 /u:/(/fo:l/ → /fu:l/ '傻瓜'),然后将原来的 /u:/ 推到 / ǝ u/(/fu:l/ → /f ǝ ul/ '恶棍')。
A sound change may initiate a set of changes known as chain shifts. The Great Vowel Shift is an example of a push chain of sound changes. The earlier long vowel /a:/ of Chaucer’s time changed to /æ:/ in Shakespeare’s time (/na:mǝ/ → /næ:m/ ‘name’). In conjunction with the loss of the final schwa, this change in vowel quality created ambiguities between minimal pairs, as two words which had previously been distinguished by their vowels were now pronounced with the same vowel. (Imagine the confusion if Modern English words like pat and sat and bat were pronounced the same way as pet and set and bet.) These ambiguities pushed the original /æ:/ to /e:/ (/bæ:tǝ/ → /be:t/ ‘beat’ – which subsequently changed to /bi:t/ in later years). This created a new set of ambiguities, which then pushed the original /e:/ to /i:/ (/be:tǝ/ → /bi:t/ ‘beet’), creating yet another set of ambiguities, which then pushed the original /i:/ to /ǝi/ (/bi:tǝ/ → /bǝit/ ‘bite’). This last step actually created a new phoneme in the phonological system – the diphthong /ay/. Similarly the rounded vowel /o:/ changed to /o:/ (/fɔ:l/ → /fo:l/ ‘foal’) and pushed the original /o:/ to /u:/ (/fo:l/ → /fu:l/ ‘fool’), which then pushed the original /u:/ to /ǝu/ (/fu:l/ → /fǝul/ ‘foul’).
在拉链中,一个声音的变化可能会在音素模式中产生一个缺口,即声音从其转移的空间。这可以通过“拉动”音素模式中的另一个声音来填补这个缺口,从而激发后续的声音变化。但这种拉动可能会产生另一个缺口,只能通过另一次拉动来填补。这个过程可能会持续下去,直到整个音位空间中的音素分布稳定。例如,在拉丁语演变为西班牙语时,拉丁语元音之间的浊音 /d/ 和 /g/ 消失了:拉丁语cad ē re →西班牙语caer “坠落”,拉丁语r ē g ī na →西班牙语reina “女王”。元音之间的 /d/ 和 /g/ 的消失造成了西班牙语辅音系统的缺失,这一缺失可通过将拉丁语元音之间的塞音 /tk/ 浊化来填补:拉丁语vita →西班牙语vida “生活”,拉丁语am ī ca →西班牙语amiga “女性朋友”。但是,这反过来又在元音之间的清塞音 /tk/ 处产生了缺失,这一缺失可通过将拉丁语元音之间的双音 /tt kk/ 缩减为单个清塞音 /tk/ 来填补:拉丁语gutta →西班牙语gota “滴”,拉丁语bucca [bukka]“鼓起的脸颊” →西班牙语boca [boka]“嘴巴”。 (如果这听起来有点循环,请记住,语言并不知道它们要去哪里”,而且这样的变化会随着几代人的流逝而发生,因此一种语言的使用者通常不会意识到语言的变化。)
In a pull chain, a change in one sound may create a gap in the phonemic pattern, in the space from which the sound shifted. This can motivate a subsequent sound change by “pulling” another sound in the phonemic pattern to fill the gap. But this pulling may create another gap, only to be filled by another pulling. The process may continue until a stable distribution of phonemes throughout the phonological space is achieved. For example, as Latin evolved into Spanish, Latin intervocalic voiced /d/ and /g/ were lost: Latin cadēre → Spanish caer ‘to fall,’ Latin rēgīna → Spanish reina ‘queen.’ The loss of intervocalic /d/ and /g/ created a gap in the Spanish consonant system which was filled by voicing the Latin intervocalic stops /t k/: Latin vita → Spanish vida ‘life,’ Latin amīca → Spanish amiga ‘female friend.’ But this, in turn, created a gap where the intervocalic voiceless stops /t k/ had been, which then was filled by reducing the Latin intervocalic geminates /tt kk/ to single voiceless stops /t k/: Latin gutta → Spanish gota ‘drop,’ Latin bucca [bukka] ‘puffed out cheek’ → Spanish boca [boka] ‘mouth.’ (If this sounds a bit circular, remember that languages don’t “know where they’re going” and changes like these occur over generations, so speakers of a language typically are not aware of language change.)
一旦语言中发生了语音变化,先前的(变化的)语音就不再存在。然而,它们常常会留下线索,让我们能够确定它们的相对时间顺序,即这些声音变化发生的顺序。例如,中世纪英语中,清腭擦音 [ç] 在night [niçt]、light [liçt] 和right [riçt]等词中发音于 /t/ 之前。正如这些词的现代发音所示,有两个变化发生:/t/ 前的 [ç] 被删除,且前面的短元音 /i/ 被加长为 /i:/。这种补偿性延长必定发生在元音大推移之前。我们怎么知道呢?请记住,由于元音大推移,高元音 /i:/ 被推入元音空间的新地址——双元音 /ay/。night、light 和 right 中的元音在元音大推移开始时必定是 /i:/ ,然后才变为双元音 /ay/,因此从 /i/ 到 /i:/ 的延长变化必定发生在元音大推移之前。请注意,我们在语言变化中发现了与共时音位理论中相同的规则排序,这进一步提醒我们,语言的共时结构与语言的历时过程之间存在密切联系。语言改变。
Once sound changes occur in a language, the prior (changed) sounds no longer exist. However, they often leave clues that allow us to determine their relative chronology, the order in which those sound changes occurred. For example, in Middle English, the voiceless palatal fricative [ç] was pronounced before /t/ in such words as night [niçt], light [liçt], and right [riçt]. As the modern pronunciation of these words shows, two changes occurred: [ç] was deleted before /t/, and the preceding short vowel /i/ was lengthened to /i:/. This compensatory lengthening must have taken place before the Great Vowel Shift. How can we tell? Remember that as a result of the Great Vowel Shift, the high vowel /i:/ was pushed into a new address in the vowel space – the diphthong /ay/. The vowels in night, light, and right must have been /i:/ when the Great Vowel Shift began, to have been changed into the diphthong /ay/, so the lengthening change from /i/ to /i:/ must have preceded the Great Vowel Shift. Notice that we find in language change the same kind of rule-ordering that is found in synchronic phonological theory, a further reminder of the close connection between the synchronic structure of language and the diachronic processes of language change.
在语言演变过程中,已有的音素可能相互靠近而产生合并,或者一个音素可能分裂成两个音素。一个声音也可能在不发生合并或分裂的情况下转变为另一个(新)声音。
In the process of language change, existing phonemes may drift close together and produce a merger, or a single phoneme may split into two phonemes. A sound may also change into another (new) sound without any merger or split.
我们之前已经看到了合并及其后果的一个例子:非重读的古英语 / εaʊ /合并到了中古英语 / ε /(后来变成了 / ǝ /,后来在早期现代英语中消失了),如表 8.4 所示。经过这一音系变化后,音素 / εaʊ /最终不再与词形成对比,导致了前面所述的屈折和句法变化——古英语格标记系统的简化和词序的固定。
We have seen an example of merger and its consequences earlier: unstressed Old English /ε a ʊ/ merged into Middle English /ε/ (which then changed to /ǝ/, and later was lost in Early Modern English), as shown in Table 8.4. After this phonological change, the phonemes /ε a ʊ/ ceased to contrast word finally, causing inflectional and syntactic changes – the simplification of the Old English case-marking system and the fixing of word order – described earlier.
| 古英语 | 中古英语 | 现代英语 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| /升ɑ米ɑ / | /la:m ɛ / | /莱姆/ | '瘸' |
| /gr ʊ nd- ɛ / | /gru:nd- ɛ / | /gra ʊ nd-/ | '地面' |
| /m ɛ d ʊ / | / mɛ : dɛ / | /miyd/ | ‘蜂蜜酒,酒’ |
分裂总是有条件的。通常,合并和分裂会同时发生。大约公元前 600 年,拉丁语 /s/ 在元音之间分裂为 /r/,在其他地方分裂为 /s/。因此,早期的“类型”起源的元音间 /s/ 变成了 /r/ in generis 。然而,这种分裂产生的元音间 /r/ 与 m ī ror “wonder”等词中先前存在的 /r/ 合并,而m ī ror “wonder” 总是有一个元音间 /r/。这种变化,被称为拉丁语卷舌音,通过影响音素 /s/ 和 /r/ 的分布而引起了音系变化,并且通过创建一些异形交替而引起了形态变化,例如fl ō s “花”(主格单数)与fl ō r-is “花”(属格单数)以及es-t “现在”与er-it “将来”。
Splits are always conditioned. Often a merger and a split occur together. By about 600 BCE, Latin /s/ split into /r/ between vowels and /s/ elsewhere. Thus, the earlier intervocalic /s/ of genesis ‘of the type’ became /r/ in generis. However, the intervocalic /r/ resulting from this split merged with the pre-existing /r/ in words like mīror ‘wonder,’ which always had an intervocalic /r/. This change, known as Latin rhotacism, caused a phonological change by affecting the distribution of the phonemes /s/ and /r/, and also a morphological change by creating some allomorphic alternation, such as flōs ‘flower’ (nominative singular) vs. flōr-is ‘flower’ (genitive singular) and es-t ‘be present’ vs. er-it ‘be future.’
这语言的语音可以以各种方式改变,最常见的是同化、异化、删除、插入、补偿性延长、换位、变位和污染。(第 1 章还讨论了其中一些语音过程,因为语言共时结构中的音位变体是许多语言变化过程的机制。)其中一些变化是每种语言不断进化的一部分,旨在使发音更加容易,而其他变化则受到其他语言的影响或语言社区需求的变化所推动。这些变化力量相互作用,确保语言永远不会稳定,并且总是在变化。
The sounds of a language can change in a variety of ways, most commonly by assimilation, dissimilation, deletion, epenthesis, compensatory lengthening, metathesis, haplology, and contamination. (Chapter 1 also discusses some of these phonological processes because allophonic alternations in the synchronic structure of a language are the mechanisms of many processes of language change.) Some of these changes are part of the ongoing evolution of each language toward greater ease of articulation, while others are motivated by influences from other languages or changes in the needs of the speech community. These forces of change interact to ensure that a language is never stable and is always changing.
我们关于语言变化的许多例子都来自英语的发展,因此简要介绍一下英语的历史可能会有所帮助。现代英语是语言接触在语言变化中发挥的作用的一个丰富例子;从广义上讲,它是由 1000 年来一系列入侵形成的。该语言最初由日耳曼部落(盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和朱特人)带到英国,受到入侵的北欧人的影响,最终因讲法语的诺曼人的占领而发生了改变。
Many of our examples of language change have been drawn from the development of English, so a brief history of the language may be useful. Modern English is a rich example of the role of language contact in language change; in broad strokes, it was shaped by a series of invasions over the course of 1,000 years. The language was originally brought to Britain by Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes), influenced by invading Norsemen, and finally transformed by the occupation of French-speaking Normans.
前英语时代。大约公元前 400 年,凯尔特语民族(他们是原始印欧人的后裔,已遍布欧洲)移居到不列颠群岛。凯尔特语在现代爱尔兰语、苏格兰盖尔语和威尔士语中仍然存在,但凯尔特语对英语的贡献被一系列入侵所淹没。第一次入侵是由尤利乌斯·凯撒于公元前 43 年领导的。罗马人殖民并统治了“不列颠尼亚”的南部 400 年,但凯尔特语中拉丁语的影响很少传到英语中。
Pre-English. Around 400 BCE, the Celtic-speaking peoples, who were descended from the original Indo-Europeans and had spread throughout Europe, migrated to the British Isles. The Celtic language survives in Modern Irish and Scots Gaelic and Welsh, but the Celtic contribution to what became English was overrun by a series of invasions. The first of these invasions was led by Julius Caesar in 43 BCE. The Romans colonized and ruled the southern half of “Britannia” for 400 years, but very little Latin influence on the Celtic languages carried over to English.
古英语:约公元 600-1100 年。罗马人于 5 世纪初帝国崩溃后撤出不列颠,取而代之的是说日耳曼语的入侵者 — — 朱特人、盎格鲁人、撒克逊人以及后来的弗里斯兰人。入侵部落定居在岛屿的不同地方,到公元 600 年,他们说的方言 — — 我们称之为“古英语” — — 与欧洲大陆上的日耳曼语截然不同。盎格鲁撒克逊人从语言和军事上压倒了凯尔特人。古英语仅包含少数凯尔特词,但当今英语中最常用的词 — — the、is和you — — 都源自盎格鲁撒克逊语。渐渐地,这个国家被称为Engla-land — — 盎格鲁人的土地 — — 他们的语言被称为Englisc。
Old English: c. 600–1100 CE. The Romans withdrew from Britain as their empire collapsed in the early fifth century. They were soon replaced by Germanic-speaking invaders – the Jutes, the Angles, the Saxons, and later the Frisians. The invading tribes settled in different parts of the island, and by 600 CE, spoke dialects – of what we call “Old English” – which were distinct from the Germanic languages spoken on the continent. The Anglo-Saxons overwhelmed the Celts linguistically as well as militarily; Old English contained just a few Celtic words, but the most frequently used words in English today – words like the, is, and you – are of Anglo-Saxon origin. Gradually, the country became known as Engla-land – the land of the Angles – and their language was called Englisc.
公元 7 世纪,圣奥古斯丁和一群僧侣将英国人皈依基督教,古英语受到了拉丁语的影响。这个时期留下了数十个拉丁语单词,包括天使和魔鬼、门徒、殉道者和神殿。基督教教堂和修道院留下了许多书面文本,这些文本很好地证明了古英语的面貌。
Old English was influenced by Latin in the seventh century when St. Augustine and a group of monks converted Britain to Christianity. Dozens of Latinate words survive from this period – including angel and devil, disciple, martyr, and shrine. Christian churches and monasteries produced many written texts – excellent evidence of what Old English was like.
公元 800 年至 1050 年间,维京人的入侵对古英语产生了深远的影响。公元 878 年,威塞克斯国王阿尔弗雷德在战斗中击败了维京人,并强行签订了一项条约,规定维京人撤退到北方,而讲古英语的撒克逊人则统治南方。 阿尔弗雷德通过倡导南方各撒克逊人共同的语言并规定以英语而不是拉丁语作为教育语言,在各撒克逊人中建立了一种民族认同感。
Between 800 and 1050, invasions by the Vikings had a profound impact on Old English. In 878 King Alfred of Wessex beat the Vikings in battle and forced a treaty by which the Vikings withdrew to the north and the Old English-speaking Saxons ruled the south. Alfred created a sense of national identity among the various groups of Saxons in the south by appealing to their shared language and mandating that English, not Latin, would be the language of education.
撒克逊人和维京人世世代代和睦相处(尽管偶尔发生战争),他们持续的接触在大大简化古英语结构方面发挥了重要作用。古英语和古挪威语使用者有许多共同的日耳曼词根,但他们的语法和屈折系统不同。经过几代人的接触,古英语失去了许多屈折标记,借用了数十个源自挪威语的单词,如hit、skin、want和error,甚至还有像them、they和their 这样的代词。许多这些借来的词是与古英语同义词一起添加的,例如 rear(英语)和raise(挪威语)。
The Saxons and the Vikings lived alongside each other for generations (despite occasional wars), and their continued contact played a significant role in greatly simplifying the structure of Old English. Old English and Old Norse speakers shared many Germanic root words but their grammatical and inflectional systems differed. Over generations of contact, Old English lost many of its inflectional markings and borrowed dozens of words of Norse origin, like hit, skin, want, and wrong, and even pronouns like them, they, and their. Many of these borrowed words were added alongside Old English synonyms – for example, rear (English) and raise (Norse).
中世纪英语:约 1100-1500 年。1066 年,诺曼底的威廉赢得了黑斯廷斯战役,法语成为英国政府、宗教和教育语言达近 300 年之久。双语制在与上层(法语社会)和下层(英语社会)打交道的人们中逐渐普及。到 1300 年,数以千计的法语词汇被借入英语,尤其是在权力领域:国家、贵族、王室和议会,更不用说政府和宗教了。语言接触导致英语音系进一步简化:古英语双元音被简化为长元音;词首辅音群如knight 中的kn - 被简化(但许多保留了其早期的拼写);短的非重读元音合并到中元音中。这些音系变化导致大部分剩余的格和性别词素区别的消失,从而使得英语变成一个更加固定的词序语法系统。
Middle English: c. 1100–1500. In 1066, William of Normandy won the Battle of Hastings, and French became the language of government, religion, and education in England for nearly 300 years. Bilingualism gradually became common among those who dealt with both upper (French-speaking) and lower (English-speaking) classes. By 1300, thousands of French words had been borrowed into English, especially in the domains of power: nation, nobility, crown, and parliament – not to mention government and religion. The language contact led to a further simplification of the English phonological system: Old English diphthongs were simplified into long vowels; word-initial consonant clusters like kn- in knight were simplified (though many kept their earlier spelling); and short unstressed vowels merged into the schwa sound. These phonological changes led to the loss of most remaining case and gender morphemic distinctions, which in turn caused English to become a much more fixed word-order grammatical system.
13 世纪,英国国王失去了诺曼底,也失去了与法国的联系,英语再次成为国家认同的象征。1362 年,英语成为法庭的语言,其中许多词汇都借用了法语:例如, 法官、法院、律师、犯罪和起诉。乔叟在 1380 年左右用中世纪英语写了《坎特伯雷故事集》。伦敦方言作为“标准”的地位是在1474 什么时候威廉·卡克斯顿将印刷机带到了英国,并以伦敦发音为基础进行拼写。大元音推移(约1450-1650 年)标志着从中世纪英语到现代英语的过渡。许多英语单词的拼写方式在大元音推移之前一直保留,反映了中世纪英语发音。
In the thirteenth century, the English kings lost Normandy – and their ties to the French – and English once again became a symbol of national identity. In 1362 English became the language of the law courts — with many words borrowed from French: e.g. judge, court, attorney, crime, and sue. Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in Middle English around 1380. The London dialect’s status as the ‘standard’ was codified in 1474 when William Caxton brought the printing press to England and based his spellings on London pronunciations. The Great Vowel Shift (c. 1450–1650) marks the transition from Middle to Modern English. The spellings of many English words persist from before the shift and reflect the Middle English pronunciation.
现代英语:约 1500 年至今。该语言形成了相对固定的主语-动词-宾语词序,但继续保持其吸收性,在其词汇中增加了数千个借用词。
Modern English: c. 1500–present. The language settled into its relatively fixed Subject–Verb–Object word order, but continued its acquisitive ways, adding thousands of borrowed words to its lexicon.
莎士比亚在 16 世纪晚期创作,从欧洲大陆汲取素材,也借用了许多外来词。1611 年首次出版的《钦定版圣经》为书面英语树立了长期的典范。在 18 世纪英国文学的古典时期,作家们不仅借用了数百个拉丁语和希腊语词汇,甚至还用拉丁语和希腊语词素创造了新词。大英帝国从世界各地引进词汇。19 世纪和 20 世纪的科学、工业和通信革命激发了新的技术词汇,英语传播到了世界各地,尤其是作为一种科学通用语。与此同时,英语国家的移民继续为英语的词汇丰富做出贡献。纵观英语的发展历史,它一直大量借用其他语言的词汇。虽然其最常用的词汇绝大多数是“本土”词汇(即源自盎格鲁-撒克逊语),但 20,000 个常用词汇中约有 60% 是借来的。
Shakespeare, writing in the late 1500s and drawing from continental sources for his plots, also imported many foreign words. The King James Bible, first published in 1611, set a long-standing model for written English. During the eighteenth-century classical period of English literature, writers not only borrowed hundreds of Latin and Greek words, they even coined new words using Latin and Greek morphemes. The British Empire imported words from all around the world. The scientific, industrial, and communication revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries inspired new technical vocabularies, and English spread – particularly as a scientific lingua franca – throughout the world. At the same time, immigrants to English-speaking countries continue to make contributions to the lexical richness of the language. Throughout its history, English has been a heavy borrower of words from other languages. While its most frequently used words are overwhelmingly “native” (that is, of Anglo-Saxon origin), some 60 percent of the 20,000 words in common use are borrowed.
在同化过程中,一个音会向附近的音改变方向,这通常是为了便于发音。最常见的同化类型是回归同化,其中辅音群的第一个成员向第二个音改变方向。例如:
In assimilation a sound changes in the direction of a nearby sound, often for ease of articulation. The most common kind of assimilation is regressive assimilation, in which the first member of a consonant cluster changes in the direction of the second sound. For example:
| 拉丁: | 八が | 夜之梦 | 事实 | 破裂 | 九月 |
| '八' | '夜晚' | '完毕' | '破碎的' | '七' | |
| ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | |
| 意大利语: | 奥托 | 夜晚 | 法托 | 罗托 | 塞特 |
在进行性同化,第二个辅音发生改变:
In progressive assimilation, the second consonant is altered:
| 梵文: | 儿子 | mitra ‘朋友’ | š ukra '维纳斯' |
| ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | |
| 方言: | 普塔 | 米塔 | 苏卡 |
同化可以是完全的,如上例所示,也可以是部分的:梵语 š akuntal ā “Shakuntala,一个女人的名字”变成了 Prakrit saundal ā,梵语kintu “但是”变成了 Prakrit kindu。从 /nt/ 到 /nd/ 的变化表明部分进行时同化,因为 /t/ 只从前面的 /n/ 中吸收了浊音的特征(而不是其发音方式)。关节)。
Assimilation can be total, as the above examples show, or it can be partial: Sanskrit šakuntalā ‘Shakuntala, a woman’s name’ changed into Prakrit saundalā, and Sanskrit kintu ‘but’ became Prakrit kindu. The change from /nt/ to /nd/ shows partial progressive assimilation, because /t/ took only the feature of voicing from the preceding /n/ (and not its manner of articulation).
同化的反义词是异化,即相似的声音变得不那么相似。例如,拉丁语peregrínus(外国人、陌生人)变成了意大利语pellegrino,法语pèlerin(外国人、朝圣者、游客。' (然而,在西班牙语中,原始序列保持不变:peregrino 。)当梵文daridra变成 Bhojpuri daliddar时,类似的异化也发生了“穷人”。梵语samm ā na变成了 Bhojpuri sanm ā n “荣誉”,这是一种异化,其中mm变成了nm。
The opposite of assimilation is dissimilation, in which similar sounds become less similar. For example, Latin peregrínus ‘foreigner, stranger’ became Italian pellegrino and French pèlerin ‘foreigner, pilgrim, traveler.’ (In Spanish, however, the original sequence remains unchanged: peregrino.) Similar dissimilation occurred when Sanskrit daridra became Bhojpuri daliddar ‘poor.’ Sanskrit sammāna became Bhojpuri sanmān ‘honor,’ a dissimilation in which mm became nm.
非重读元音经常从单词内部删除。这种丢失或删除是称为syncope。例如,通俗拉丁语pópulu “人民”变成了法语peuple和西班牙语pueblo;通俗拉丁语f ā bulare变成了西班牙语hablar “说话”。(通俗拉丁语或口语拉丁语是古典拉丁语和现代罗曼语之间的纽带。)同样,原始斯拉夫语ot ə dal ə →俄语oddal “归还”,原始斯拉夫语b j ə rat j i →俄语b j rat j “拿走”。当然,元音不会在一夜之间从单词中消失。元音删除通常先于元音减少;一些单词中的元音(通常在非重读音节中)变得更短、更松弛、更中心,然后从这些单词中完全消失。每一代都会听到(并产生)一个更短且区分度更低的元音,直到最后元音不再是这些单词的一部分。
Unstressed vowels often get deleted from the interior of a word. This kind of loss or deletion is called syncope. For example, Vulgar Latin pópulu ‘people’ became French peuple and Spanish pueblo; Vulgar Latin fābulare became Spanish hablar ‘to speak.’ (Vulgar, or spoken, Latin was the link between Classical Latin and the modern Romance languages.) Similarly, Proto-Slavic otədalə → Russian oddal ‘gave back,’ and Proto-Slavic bjəratji → Russian bjratj ‘to take.’ Vowels don’t just disappear from words over night, of course. Vowel deletion is usually preceded by vowel reduction; a vowel in some words (often in unstressed syllables) becomes shorter, more lax, and more central before disappearing from those words entirely. Each successive generation hears (and produces) a shorter and less differentiated vowel, until finally the vowel is no longer part of those words.
辅音也会随着时间的推移而被删除。例如,当俄语中原始斯拉夫语 / ə /消失而产生一些复杂的辅音群时,它们会通过删除其中一个辅音来简化:
Consonants can also be deleted over time. For example, when some complex consonant clusters were produced by the loss of Proto-Slavic /ə/ in Russian, they were simplified by deletion of one of the consonants:
| 原始斯拉夫语: | cis j t j ə n ə y ə '干净' | poz j d j ə没有‘晚’ | s j ə r j d j ə ce '心' |
| ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | |
| 俄语: | 契斯纳亚 | 波兹纳 | 斯耶尔采 |
阿波佩另一种删除,指的是单词末尾的一个声音(通常是元音)的丢失:
Apocope, another kind of deletion, refers to the loss of a sound, usually a vowel, at the end of a word:
| 梵文: | vana ‘森林’ | 十 | ru:pa ‘外观’ |
| ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | |
| 印地语: | 禁止 | 达斯 | ru:p |
再如,古英语中的asce、oxa、sunu分别变成了现代英语中的ash、ox、son。有些英语使用者在chile中表示child,在ole中表示old ,这体现了辅音的脱音。
As another example, Old English asce, oxa, sunu became Modern English ash, ox, son, respectively. Some speakers of English show consonantal apocopation in chile for child and ole for old.
在单词中插入一个声音,这叫做插入音。在单词开头插入一个声音被称为作为假肢。以s加塞音开头的拉丁词在西班牙语中显示假肢e:拉丁语scuta “盾牌”,scola “学校”,stabula “稳定”分别变成了西班牙语escudo、escuela、estable。当在两个辅音之间插入元音时,这称为anaptyxis或svarabhakti 元音:
When a sound is inserted into a word, it is called epenthesis. The insertion of a sound at the beginning of a word is known as prosthesis. Latin words beginning with s plus a stop consonant show a prosthetic e in Spanish: Latin scuta ‘shield,’ scola ‘school,’ stabula ‘stable’ became Spanish escudo, escuela, estable, respectively. When a vowel is inserted between two consonants, it is called an anaptyxis or svarabhakti vowel:
| 梵文: | bhasma ‘灰烬’ | yatna ‘努力’ | š ukla '白色,明亮,舒克拉婆罗门' |
| ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | |
| 印地语: | 巴萨姆 | 贾坦 | 苏库尔 |
赘词是一种插入音,为了发音方便,会添加辅音插入其他辅音之间:古英语th y¯ mel、scamol、slumere、æmetig、thunor、spinel变成了现代英语thimble、shambles、slumber、empty、thunder、spinel。在这些例子中,鼻音后古英语非重读元音的消失产生了难以发音的辅音群,其中多余的塞音 /b/、/p/ 或 /d/ 被插入。
Excrescence is a kind of epenthesis in which, for ease of articulation, a consonant is inserted between other consonants: Old English thy¯mel, scamol, slumere, æmetig, thunor, spinel became Modern English thimble, shambles, slumber, empty, thunder, spindle. In these examples, the loss of the Old English unstressed vowels after the nasals created a hard-to-pronounce consonant cluster, within which the excrescent stop /b/, /p/, or /d/ was inserted.
辅音的减弱或消失有时伴随着前一个元音的补偿性延长。正如我们之前所看到的,在中古英语中 [ç] 在night [niçt]、light [liçt] 和right [riçt]的 /t/ 之前消失,其前一个元音 /i/ 被加长,随后在现代英语中变为双元音 /ay/。另一个这种加长的例子是:
The weakening or loss of consonants is sometimes accompanied by compensatory lengthening of a preceding vowel. As we saw before, after the Middle English [ç] was lost before /t/ in night [niçt], light [liçt], and right [riçt], the preceding vowel /i/ was lengthened and subsequently changed to the diphthong /ay/ in Modern English. Another example of such lengthening is:
| 梵文: | sapta ‘七’ | tapta ‘热’ | 儿子 |
| ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | |
| 方言: | 萨塔 | 塔塔 | 普塔 |
| ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | |
| 印地语: | 萨特 | 塔 | 放 |
在印度语中,俗语同化之后,双辅音被简化,而前面的元音 /a/ 或 /u/ 被加长。
After the Prakrit assimilation, the geminated consonants were simplified and the preceding vowel /a/ or /u/ was lengthened in Hindi.
有时,声音的位置会调换,这个过程称为换位。例如,古英语hros、brid、thridda、beorht、thurh、wyrhta变成了现代英语horse、bird、third、bright、through、Wright。西班牙语表现出零星的换位,其中拉丁语 /r… l/ 变为 /l…r/;例如,拉丁语parabola变成了西班牙语单词。
Sometimes the positions of sounds are transposed, a process called metathesis. For example, Old English hros, brid, thridda, beorht, thurh, wyrhta became Modern English horse, bird, third, bright, through, Wright. Spanish shows sporadic metathesis in which Latin /r… l/ was changed to /l … r/; for example, Latin parabola became Spanish palabra ‘word.’
在发音学中,重复的声音序列被简化为单个出现。因此,拉丁语阴性施事名词“护士”的预期形式应该是n ū tr ī tr ī x(n ū tr ī “滋养”加上阴性施事tr ī x),但实际形式是n ū tr ī x。同样,拉丁语st ī pi-pendium “工资支付”实际上显示为st ī pendium。古希腊语amphi-phoréos “两侧载体”出现为双耳瓶‘双耳瓶’
In haplology, a repeated sequence of sounds is reduced to a single occurrence. Thus, the expected form for the Latin feminine agent-noun ‘nurse’ ought to be nūtrītrīx (nūtrī ‘nourish’ plus the feminine agent trīx), but the actual form is nūtrīx. Similarly, Latin stīpi-pendium ‘wage-payment’ actually appears as stīpendium. Ancient Greek amphi-phoréos ‘both-side-carrier’ appears as amphoréos¯ ‘amphora.’
语言变化的最重要来源之一是不同语言使用者之间的接触。从另一种语言或方言中吸收元素是语言借用。借用的元素通常是词汇,称为作为借词,但形态和句法模式也可以借用。借用元素的语言称为供体语言,借用语言称为接受语言。例如,单词pundit、yoga和guru是接受语言英语从供体语言 Hindi 借用的。
One of the most important sources of language change is contact between speakers of different languages. The adoption of elements from another language or dialect is linguistic borrowing. The borrowed elements are usually lexical items, known as loan words, but morphological and syntactic patterns can also be borrowed. The language from which elements are borrowed is called the donor, and the borrowing language is called the recipient language. For example, the words pundit, yoga, and guru have been borrowed by the recipient language, English, from the donor language, Hindi.
一个元素可能会因为其威望而被从另一种语言中借用 或者因为它填补了借用语言的需要或空白。当从一种文化或政治上占主导地位的语言中借用某种元素时,动机是为了声望。声望因素往往导致底层语言大量借用占主导地位或上层语言的元素。例如,印地语可以完美地使用本土词subah k ā k h ā n ā、dopahar k ā k h ā n ā和r ā t k ā k h ā n ā (subah “早上”,dopahar “中午”,rāt “晚上”,kā “所有格后置词”,khānā “饭菜”)。但是为了维护声誉,许多印地语使用者从英语中借用了breakfast(早餐)、lunch(午餐)和dinner(晚餐)三个词。当接受语言借用新事物和概念及其名称时,满足需求的动机显而易见。因此,印地语获得了radio、train、railway和coffee等词语以及它们所代表的事物。同样,英语获得了pundit、yoga和guru 等词语以及它们所代表的概念。
An element may be borrowed from another language because of its prestige or because it fills a need or gap in the borrowing language. When an element is borrowed from a language which is culturally or politically dominant, the motive is prestige. Often the prestige factor leads to extensive borrowing from the dominant, or superstratum, language into the substratum language. For example, Hindi could do perfectly well with the native words subah kā khānā, dopahar kā khānā, and rāt kā khānā (subah ‘morning,’ dopahar ‘noon,’ rāt ‘night,’ kā ‘possessive postposition,’ khānā ‘meal’). But for reasons of prestige, breakfast, lunch, and dinner have been borrowed by many speakers of Hindi from English. The need-filling motive is obvious when the recipient language borrows new objects and concepts along with their names. Thus, Hindi acquired the words radio, train, railway, and coffee along with the objects they represent. Similarly, English acquired the words pundit, yoga, and guru along with the concepts they represent.
当说话者将自己语言中已有的材料改编为属于捐助方语言的对象和概念时,这个过程是也被称为借词转移或借词翻译。通常,借词翻译是通过将捐助国语言中的元素逐字翻译成借用语言的复合词而产生的。例如,英语的almighty、handbook和Monday分别是拉丁语omnipotens ( omni -“所有”+ pot ē ns “强大的”)、manu ā lis liber ( manu ā lis -“手”+ liber “书”)和di ē s lunae ( di ē s -“天”+ lunae “月亮”)的借词翻译。其他借词翻译的例子有将英语单词librarian、clerk、pilot、journal借入印尼语,形成juru pustaka “专家书”、“专家写作”、“专家飞行”和juru berita “专家新闻”。
When speakers adapt material already present in their language for the objects and concepts belonging to the donor language, the process is called loan shift or loan translation. Typically, a loan translation is created by literally translating elements from the donor language into compound words in the borrowing language. For example, the English almighty, handbook, and Monday are loan translations of Latin omnipotens (omni- ‘all’ + potēns ‘powerful’), manuālis liber (manuālis- ‘hand’ + liber ‘book’), and diēs lunae (diēs- ‘day’ + lunae ‘moon’). Other examples of loan translation are the English words librarian, clerk, pilot, journalist imported into Indonesian as juru pustaka ‘expert book,’ juru tulis ‘expert write,’ juru terbeang ‘expert fly,’ juru berita ‘expert news.’
词汇借用经常会导致接受方语言发生进一步的变化。借用的词汇通常会被改变以符合母语规则,这一过程称为适应,借用词中出现的外来声音会被借用语言中最接近的音素所取代。例如,日语中的齿塞音 /t/ 有三种变体:[ts] 在 [u] 之前,[t ʃ ] 在 [iy] 之前,以及 [t] 在 [eao] 之前。因此,以齿塞音 /t/ 开头的英语借词,如touring、team、tube和tank ,在日语中被改编为tsuri n¯ gu、t ʃ iimu、t ʃ yuubu和ta n¯ ku(同时增加了日语音节结构所需的最终元音)。(在这些例子中,n¯ 表示音节鼻音。)同样,英语 小提琴在日语中被改编为baiori n¯,用 /b/ 和 /r/ 代替英语的 /v/ 和 /l/。再举一个例子,考虑英语单词bandana和thug,它们借用自印地语bã:d h ana “系”和t h ag “骗子”。印地语浊送气齿塞音 [d h ] 和清送气卷舌塞音 [ ʈ h ] 分别被最接近的英语声音 [d] 和 [t h ] 取代。(还请注意,bã:d h ana中的印地语鼻元音 [ã:]在英语单词中被拆分为元音加鼻辅音 [æ:n]。)送气卷舌音拼写为th,然后被误读为齿擦音,形成了现代英语thug。
Lexical borrowing frequently leads to further changes in the recipient language. Often borrowed items are changed to conform to native linguistic rules, a process known as adaptation in which foreign sounds occurring in loan words are replaced by their nearest phonetic equivalents in the borrowing language. For example, in Japanese the dental stop /t/ has three variants: [ts] before [u], [tʃ] before [i y], and [t] before [e a o]. Thus, the English loan words beginning with an alveolar /t/, as in touring, team, tube, and tank have been adapted in Japanese (along with the addition of a final vowel required by Japanese syllable structure) as tsurin¯gu, tʃiimu, tʃyuubu, and tan¯ku, respectively. (In these examples n¯ symbolizes a syllabic nasal.) Similarly, English violin has been adapted in Japanese as baiorin¯, with the substitution of /b/ and /r/ for the English /v/ and /l/. For another example, consider the English words bandana and thug, borrowed from the Hindi bã:dhana ‘to tie,’ and thag ‘a swindler.’ The Hindi voiced aspirated dental stop [dh] and the voiceless aspirated retroflex stop [ʈh] have been replaced by the closest English sounds, [d] and [th], respectively. (Notice also that the Hindi nasal vowel [ã:] in bã:dhana has been split into a vowel plus nasal consonant [æ:n] in the English word.) An aspirated retroflex was spelled as th and then mispronounced as a dental fricative to produce Modern English thug.
回想一下第 293 页的讨论,借词可能通过引入借用语言中以前不允许的模式而引起音系变化。如前所述,早期英语没有音素 /v ð z/。音位变体 /v ð z/ 仅作为音素 /f θ s/ 的元音间变体出现。然而,法语和斯堪的纳维亚语的借词在词首也有这些变体,这导致 [v ð z] 在词首经常与 [f θ s] 形成对比,从而成为独立的英语音素。同样,音素 / ʒ / 仅通过法语借词(如rouge、garage、collage、mirage )进入英语,但在英语中并不以音素开头出现字。
Recall the discussion on page 293 that loan words may cause phonological change by introducing patterns which were not previously permitted in the borrowing language. As we saw before, earlier English did not have the phonemes /v ð z/. The allophones /v ð z/ occurred only as intervocalic variants of the phonemes /f θ s/. However, loan words from French and Scandivanian, which had these variants in initial position as well, caused [v ð z] to contrast frequently with [f θ s] at the beginning of words and thus become separate English phonemes in their own right. Likewise, the phoneme /ʒ/ entered English only through French loan words such as rouge, garage, collage, mirage, but does not occur initially in English words.
借用也会导致接受者语言的形态变化。许多名词从拉丁语和希腊语引入英语,其复数形式和单数形式。这丰富了英语的屈折形态,提供了构成复数的新方法。这些名词包括拉丁语datum/data、vertebra/vertebrae、nucleus/nuclei、index/indices、matrix/matrices、analysis/analyses,以及希腊语criterion/criteria和stigma/stigmata 。(有些英语使用者通过添加-s来构成这些名词的复数,而data通常被视为单数,如The data is being Collected。)罗曼语词汇的引入,例如opaque/opacity、electric/electricity和eccentric/eccentricity ,为英语引入了拉丁语重音规则和罗曼语形态音位规则 /k/ → /s/ (在某些环境中)。
Borrowing can also lead to morphological change in the recipient language. Many nouns have been imported into English from Latin and Greek with their plural as well as their singular forms. This has enriched English inflectional morphology by providing new ways to form plurals. Some of these nouns are Latin datum/data, vertebra/vertebrae, nucleus/nuclei, index/indices, matrix/matrices, analysis/analyses, and Greek criterion/criteria and stigma/stigmata. (Some speakers of English form the plural of these nouns by adding -s, while data is often treated as a singular, as in The data is being collected.) The importation of Romance words such as opaque/opacity, electric/electricity, and eccentric/eccentricity introduced into English a Latin stress rule and the Romance morphophonemic rule /k/ → /s/ in certain environments.
借用还可能导致借用语言的句法发生变化。英语的借用影响了美国各种意第绪语中疑问代词和关系代词的句法表达 (Hockett 1958 : 411)。与同时表示疑问代词和关系代词的英语who不同,意第绪语有两种形式,疑问代词ver 'who' 和关系代词vos 'who'。与英语中who的用法类似,美国的一些意第绪语使用者对两者都使用单一形式ver 。因此,他们对于“谁在这里?”应使用ver iz do?,而对于“在这里的人”应使用 der ment š ver iz do(而不是预期的der ment š vos iz do)。
Borrowing can also lead to syntactic change in the borrowing language. Loan shift from English has affected the syntactic representation of interrogative and relative pronouns in a variety of Yiddish spoken in the United States (Hockett 1958: 411). Unlike English who, which represents both interrogative and relative pronouns, Yiddish has two forms, interrogative ver ‘who’ and relative vos ‘who.’ By analogy with the English usage of who, some Yiddish speakers in the United States use the single form ver for both. Thus, they have the expected ver iz do? for ‘who is here?’ but der mentš ver iz do (instead of the expected der mentš vos iz do) for ‘the man who is here.’
借用增加了接受者语言的词汇量,但也会导致其他语义变化。在英语中,“动物”的旧词是鹿(古英语d ē或),就像德语Tier “动物”一样。当拉丁语animal被借用到英语时, deer的含义仅限于被猎杀的特定动物。同样,当印地语借用梵语单词stana '乳房',古印地语中表示'乳房'的单词,仅限于'动物(非人类)当法语的萨瓦方言从标准法语中借用了père “父亲”和mère “母亲”时,原来表示“父亲”和“母亲”的萨瓦词 pâre和mâre就仅限于指公牛和母牛了(Anttila 1972:143)。
Borrowing increases the vocabulary of the recipient language, but it can also lead to other semantic changes, as well. In English the old word for ‘animal’ was deer (Old English dēor), like German Tier ‘animal.’ When the Latin animal was borrowed into English, the meaning of deer was restricted to a particular animal that was hunted. Similarly, when Hindi borrowed the Sanskrit word stana ‘breast,’ the old Hindi word for ‘breast,’ than, was restricted to ‘animal (nonhuman) breast.’ When the Savoyard dialect of French borrowed père ‘father’ and mère ‘mother’ from Standard French, the original Savoyard words for ‘father’ and ‘mother,’ pâre and mâre, became restricted to male and female cattle (Anttila 1972: 143).
凯利·罗斯 (Kelley Ross) 是加州的一位哲学教授,对历史语言学很感兴趣,他在自己的网站 ( www.friesian.com/egypt.htm ) 上讲述了adobe的有趣词源:
Kelley Ross, a philosophy professor in California with an interest in historical linguistics, relates an interesting etymology for adobe on his website (www.friesian.com/egypt.htm):
“Adobe” 是西班牙语中泥砖的意思……似乎是从阿拉伯语单词 “泥砖”……但“a ṭṭ ûb”并非源自阿拉伯语;它是从科普特语借来的,科普特语中有“泥砖”一词,而“泥砖”又源自
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中古埃及语中表示泥砖的单词,带有db的表音符号和“砖”的表意符号。
因此,我们用同一个词来表示埃及人命令以色列人为法老的宫殿制造的相同物品。
“Adobe” is the Spanish word for mud brick … [which] seems to have been borrowed from the Arabic word ‘the mud brick’ … But’aṭṭûb, is not ultimately from Arabic; it was borrowed from Coptic, which has the word ‘mud brick’ , which is in turn from the Middle Egyptian word for mud brick, with a phonogram for db and an ideographic determinative for ‘brick.’
Thus, we use the same word for the same objects that the Egyptians commanded the Israelites to make for the palaces of Pharaoh.
语言使用者倾向于喜欢规则模式,而不是有许多例外的模式。儿童更容易掌握规则模式(而例外更容易被遗忘)。借用和其他语言变化过程可能会给语言带来不规则性。类比过程有助于重申语言模式的规律性。类比涉及通过(过度)概括现有模式来修改或创建语言形式。儿童在学习他们的语言时经常过度概括母语;例如,与大多数动词的过去时态的形态表示方式类似(添加-ed ,因此walk的过去时态为walk ),学习英语的儿童会经历说goed和Bringed 的阶段。
Speakers of a language tend to prefer regular patterns over patterns with many exceptions. Regular patterns are more easily acquired by children (and exceptions are more easily forgotten). Borrowing and other processes of language change may introduce irregularities into the language. The processes of analogy help to reassert regularity in the patterns of the language. Analogy involves the modification or creation of linguistic forms by (over)generalization of an existing pattern. Children overgeneralize frequently in acquiring their native language; for example, by analogy with the way past tense is morphologically indicated on most verbs (add -ed, so the past tense of walk is walked), children acquiring English pass through a stage in which they say goed and bringed.
有时,一个词会因为与属于同一语义场的其他词频繁关联而被重新变形。这个过程称为污染。例如,历史上预期的femelle [f ē m ə l] 或 [fim ə l] 已被改为female [fímel],因为它习惯性地与male配对。在通俗拉丁语中也可以看到类似的影响, gravis → grevis '重' 与levis '轻' 相关联,sinister → sinexter '左' 源自dexter '右',reddere → rendere '放弃' 源自prendere '抓住'。
Sometimes a word is reshaped on the basis of frequent association with some other word belonging to the same semantic field. This process is called contamination. For example, the historically expected femelle [fēməl] or [fiməl] has been altered to female [fímel] because of its habitual paring with male. Similar influence can be seen in Vulgar Latin gravis → grevis ‘heavy’ by association with levis ‘light,’ sinister → sinexter ‘left’ after dexter ‘right,’ and reddere → rendere ‘give up,’ after prendere ‘seize.’
过度纠正是另一种类比变化,即错误地认为改变后的形式比用其取代的正确形式更正确。例如,一些美国人会把Martha成Marthy,或America说成Ameriky。如果教他们这些单词中的最后一个元音 /-i/ 是“不正确的”,他们有时会走得太远,把Cincinnati成Cincinnata,或把Missouri说成Missoura,用最后一个 /-ə/ 代替正确的 /-i/。这里的过度纠正形式是错误的Cincinnata和Missoura(Hall 1964 : 362)。
Hypercorrection is another kind of analogical change, in which a changed form is mistakenly assumed to be more correct than a correct form, which it replaces. For example, some Americans say Marthy for Martha, or Ameriky for America. If they are taught that the final vowel /-i/ in these words is “incorrect,” sometimes they go too far and say Cincinnata for Cincinnati, or Missoura for Missouri, substituting a final /-ə/ for a correct /-i/. Here the hypercorrected forms are the incorrect Cincinnata and Missoura (Hall 1964: 362).
有时,当一种语言的使用者误解了单词的形态成分时,就会通过民间词源或重新分析创造出新的形式或现有形式得到新的解释 。因此, hamburger(其真正词源是“汉堡市”+ er “来自的人”)被重新分析为ham + burger “用火腿做的汉堡” 。hamburger中没有使用 ham 是无关紧要的。随后,通过这种民间词源的类比,创造了 cheeseburger、chiliburger和 plain burger等新形式。
Sometimes new forms are created or existing forms receive a new interpretation through folk etymology or reanalysis, when speakers of a language misconstrue the morphological constituents of a word. Thus, hamburger (whose true etymology is ‘the city of Hamburg’ + er ‘someone from’) has been reanalyzed as ham+burger ‘burger made with ham.’ It is quite irrelevant that ham is not used in hamburger. Subsequently, by the analogy of this folk etymology, new forms such as cheeseburger, chiliburger, and plain burger have been created.
另一种可以导致新词形成的重新分析形式是反向构词。例如,英语pea是反向构词,源自古英语单数pise。古英语复数为pisan。古英语单数pise ,后来发音为 /pi:z/ ,被类比地重新解释为复数 - /pi: + z/ 。这导致了单数pea的反向形成,而古英语单数pise被重新分析为新的复数形式peas。
Another form of reanalysis that can lead to the formation of a new word is the process of back formation. For example, English pea is a back formation from the Old English singular pise. The Old English plural was pisan. Old English singular pise, later pronounced as /pi:z/, was analogically reinterpreted as a plural – /pi: + z/. This led to the back formation of singular pea, with Old English singular pise reanalyzed as a new plural form, peas.
当旧形式的结构分析被类比地替换为对说话者来说“更有意义”的分析时,我们称之为元分析或重新分析。例如,现代英语adder(一种蛇)来自古英语næddre。这种变化发生在古英语冠词-名词序列a + næddre在中古英语为an + æddre。德语中没有出现这样的元分析,其同源词是Natter 'adder, viper'。
When the structural analysis of an older form is analogically replaced by an analysis which makes “more sense” to a speaker, we speak of metanalysis or recutting. For example, the modern English adder (a kind of snake) comes from the Old English næddre. The change came about when the Old English article–noun sequence a + næddre was reanalyzed in Middle English as an + æddre. No such metanalysis occurred in German, where the cognate is Natter ‘adder, viper.’
克里斯托弗·哥伦布从“新大陆”带回了许多新植物品种,其中就包括番茄。起初,欧洲人认为番茄有毒,但到了 18 世纪,番茄开始像茄子一样被油炸和食用。在意大利,番茄甚至被赋予了茄子的旧绰号pomo di moro,即“摩尔人的果实”。(在中世纪,摩尔人和土耳其商人经常因新产品而获得词汇上的认可;许多意大利农民仍将新大陆的玉米称为granturco,即“土耳其谷物”。) Pomo di moro后来被缩写为pomodoro ( pomo d'oro ),英语历史学家错误地将其翻译为“苹果金子。'
Christopher Columbus brought back many new plant varieties from the “New World,” including the tomato. At first, Europeans thought tomatoes were poisonous, but by the 1700s, tomatoes were being fried and eaten like eggplants. In Italy, tomatoes were even given the eggplant’s old nickname, pomo di moro, or ‘fruit of the Moors.’ (In the Middle Ages, Moorish and Turkish traders were often given lexical credit for new products; New World corn is still called granturco, or ‘Turkish grain,’ by many Italian farmers.) Pomo di moro was subsequently contracted to pomodoro (pomo d’oro), which English-speaking historians have erroneously translated as ‘apples of gold.’
当不讲同一种语言的人为了某些目的(比如贸易)而不得不相互交往时,皮钦语就产生了。他们发展出了一种说话方式,这种方式的大部分词汇都来自一种语言(最常见的情况是欧洲语言),并将单词组合成短词组,词序灵活。以下摘录自 20 世纪早期夏威夷皮钦英语,非常典型(Bickerton 1981 :13):
Pidgin languages develop when people who do not share a language have to deal with each other for limited purposes, like trade. They develop a way of speaking that takes most of its vocabulary from one language (in the best-known cases, a European language), and combines words in short groups with flexible word order. The following excerpt from Hawai‘ian Pidgin English, spoken in the early twentieth century, is fairly typical (Bickerton 1981:13):
如果一种皮钦语的使用范围超出了最低限度的接触情况,并获得了母语使用者,它就变成了一种克里奥尔语。(现在被称为夏威夷皮钦语的语言实际上是一种克里奥尔语。)克里奥尔语乍一看很像皮钦语,但仔细观察就会发现,它们具有在任何语言中都能找到的语法结构。托克皮钦语(尽管它的名字如此)是一种克里奥尔语,也是巴布亚新几内亚的官方语言之一。以下是有人请求某人为在线百科全书维基百科撰写托克皮钦语的语法:
If the use of a pidgin expands beyond minimal contact situations and acquires native speakers, it becomes a creole. (The language that is now called Hawai‘ian Pidgin is actually a creole.) Creoles are at first glance like pidgins, but on closer inspection they turn out to have the kind of grammatical structure you might find in any language. Tok Pisin (despite its name) is a creole and one of the official languages of Papua New Guinea. Below is a request for someone to write an grammar of Tok Pisin for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia:
“如果您了解托克皮辛语语法,请帮助在 Wikibooks 上编写一本教授托克皮辛语的书。”
‘If you know Tok Pisin grammar, please help write a book for teaching Tok Pisin on Wikibooks.’
与夏威夷皮钦语英语的例子不同,托克皮钦语的句子结构相当复杂,而且很多内容与英语不同,尽管英语最初提供了大部分词汇。例如,词素i是谓语开头的标记,必须在第三人称的主语后使用。动词词干haliv和rait上的后缀im将它们标记为及物动词。该句子还包含一个结构化的if子句,语法比您在皮钦语中预期的要复杂得多。
Unlike the Hawai‘ian Pidgin English example, the Tok Pisin sentence has considerable structure, and much of it is not like English, although English originally supplied most of its vocabulary. For example, the morpheme i is a marker of the beginning of a predicate, and must be used after a subject in the third person. The suffix -im on the verb stems haliv- and rait- marks them as transitive verbs. The sentence also contains a structured if-clause, more complex syntax than you would expect in a pidgin.
按照标准观点,克里奥尔语的发展速度比语言变化的正常速度要快得多,因为它们的形态和句法更加丰富。人们认为克里奥尔语只在一代人的时间内就发展起来了,因为孩子们接触到了一种以前只有成年人才会说的洋泾浜语,然后把它当作母语。关于为什么会这样,一个假说是“生物程序假说”,即这是因为儿童会将普遍语法的资源运用到语言学习中(Bickerton 1984、1990 )。前几代成年人在成年期发展了洋泾浜语,但无法像儿童那样充分接触普遍语法,因此洋泾浜语仍然相对没有结构化。最近,包括 DeGraff( 1999)和 Thomason(2001:157-189) 在内的几位学者对克里奥尔语发展迅速或变化方式不同于其他语言的观点提出了质疑。
According to the standard view, creoles develop their richer morphology and syntax at a much more rapid pace than is normally observed in language change. Creoles are thought to develop within only one generation, as children exposed to a pidgin language which was previously spoken only by adults acquire it as their native language. One hypothesis about why this should be so is the “bioprogram hypothesis,” that this happens because children bring the resources of Universal Grammar to bear on learning the language (Bickerton 1984, 1990). Previous generations of adults, having developed the pidgin in adulthood, did not have the full access to UG that children do, hence the pidgin remains relatively unstructured. The idea that creoles develop rapidly or undergo change differently from change in other languages has recently been challenged by several scholars, including DeGraff (1999) and Thomason (2001: 157–189).
全部语言在不断变化,在一千年的时间里,这些变化会产生巨大的累积效应。如果我们能把一个讲拉丁语(公元 0 年)的罗马人、一个讲古法语(公元 1000 年)的罗马人的后代和另一个讲古法语的人聚集在一起,一个说现代法语的后裔,他们中没有人能理解其他两个。例如,对于一年中的第八个月,罗马人会说 [augustum],古法语的人会说 [aúst],现代法语的人会说 [u] (Hall 1964 : 277)。只要一个语言社区形成一个紧密联系的群体,语言变化就会蔓延到所有使用该语言的人。但社区经常被分成两个或多个子社区(例如,由于移民或地缘政治分离),然后从一个子社区开始的变化往往会保留在该子社区内,结果,这些不同子社区的语言就会分化。如果 如果分歧变得如此之大,以至于各个亚社区不再相互理解,那么我们就说每个亚社区都已成为一个拥有自己语言的独立语言社区。每当两种或多种语言以这种方式从一种语言发展而来时,我们就说它们是遗传相关的或姊妹语言和任何一组相关语言都构成一个语言家族,它们来自一个共同的祖先或原始语言。
All languages are constantly changing, and over the course of a thousand years these changes can have a dramatic cumulative effect. If we could bring together a Roman who spoke Latin (0 CE), a descendant of his who spoke Old French (1000 CE), and another descendant who spoke Modern French, no one of them could understand the other two. For example, for the eighth month of the year the Roman would have said [augustum], the speaker of Old French [aúst], and the modern French speaker [u] (Hall 1964: 277). So long as a speech community forms a tight-knit group, language changes tend to spread to all the speakers of the language. But often the community is broken up into two or more subcommunities (for example, by migration or geopolitical separation), and then changes which begin in one subcommunity tend to remain within that subcommunity and, as a result, the languages of these different subcommunities diverge. If the divergence becomes so great that the subcommunities no longer understand each other, then we say that each subcommunity has become an independent speech community with its own language. Whenever two or more languages develop in this way from a single language, we say that they are genetically related or sister languages and any group of such related languages constitutes a language family, descended from a common parent or protolanguage.
学习法语、西班牙语和意大利语的学生经常能发现这些语言之间的相似之处;这三种语言中表示同一事物的单词通常发音相似,并且这三种语言在动词变位和句子构造方面也有许多相似的规则。这并不奇怪。法语、西班牙语和意大利语都是从罗马帝国士兵和行政人员使用的拉丁语的方言发展而来的。现代德语和英语的学生经常会注意到这两种语言中有类似的单词,它们都是从早期原始日耳曼语的方言发展而来的。追溯到更早的语言史前时期(没有书面记录),拉丁语和原始日耳曼语都源自更早的原始语言——原始印欧语。 梵语,是印度次大陆许多现代语言的原始语言。
Students of French, Spanish, and Italian often recognize similarities between these languages; words in the three languages for the same referent often sound similar, and the three languages share many similar rules for inflecting verbs and constructing sentences. This is not surprising. French, Spanish, and Italian all developed from regional dialects of the Latin spoken by soldiers and administrators of the Roman Empire. Students of Modern German and English often notice similar words in the two languages, which developed from dialects of an earlier Proto-Germanic language. Reaching farther back into linguistic prehistory (for which no written records exist), Latin and Proto-Germanic are both descended from an even earlier protolanguage, Proto-Indo-European. So is Sanskrit, which is the protolanguage of many modern languages of the Indian subcontinent.
图 8.2简化了从原始印欧语 (PIE) 演化而来的语言群。简化之处在于,不再使用且没有“现存”后裔的语言不包括在内。它还简化了某些语言之间的关系 - 例如,表明斯拉夫语都是同时从原始斯拉夫语中分离出来的,并且都具有同等相关性。语言的演化是经过几代人的,而不是像家谱所显示的那么突然和离散。同样重要的是要记住,印欧语系只是全球数十个语系之一。
Figure 8.2 provides a simplified look at the group of languages which evolved from Proto-Indo-European (PIE). It is simplified in that languages which are no longer spoken and have no “living” descendants are not included. It also simplifies the relations between some languages – for example, suggesting that Slavic languages all split from Proto-Slavic at the same time and are all equally related. Languages evolve over generations, not as abruptly and discretely as a family tree suggests. It is also important to remember that the Indo-European language family is just one of dozens of language families around the world.
我们如何知道拉丁语、德语和梵语等语言在地理上相距甚远,看似彼此不同,但实际上在历史上彼此相关?为了研究语言史前史,语言学家使用了两种相互关联的技术:比较方法和内部重构。
How do we know that languages like Latin, German, and Sanskrit, so geographically distant and seemingly different from each other, are in fact historically related to each other? In order to study linguistic prehistory, linguists make use of two interrelated techniques: the comparative method and internal reconstruction.
由于语言变化的过程是系统的,历史语言学家可以通过这些变化的证据来“回顾”该语言的早期版本。大部分证据都在于两种或多种语言中存在同源词——即发音相似、指称相同的词。比较法推断出通过对姊妹语言中同源形式的比较,以及对各种姊妹语言中发生的变化的分析,可以确定这些姊妹语言是否具有共同的母语或原始语言。
Because the processes of language change are systematic, historical linguists can “read back” through the evidence of those changes to reconstruct earlier versions of the language. Much of this evidence lies in the existence of cognates – that is, phonetically similar words with the same referent – in two or more languages. The comparative method infers a common parent or protolanguage from a comparison of the cognate forms found in sister languages, and from analysis of the changes that have occurred in various sister languages.
比较法的主要步骤是收集同源词、建立对应关系集以及重建原始语言的形式。首先重建原始语言的声音。然后,借助重建的音系,可以重建(至少是部分重建)原始语言的词汇和语法。
The principal steps involved in the comparative method are assembling cognates, establishing sets of correspondences, and reconstructing the forms of the protolanguage. The sounds of the protolanguage are reconstructed first. Then, with a reconstructed phonology, the vocabulary and grammar of the protolanguage can be reconstructed (at least partially) as well.
同源词是两种或多种语言中指代相同事物且发音顺序相似的词。由于表示特定含义的发音顺序是任意的,因此当我们发现来自不同语言的单词具有系统的语音对应关系时,我们会推断它们来自共同的母语。同源词通常属于从原始语言继承下来的基本词汇(身体部位、亲属称谓、数字、家居用品以及冠词和代词)。
Cognates are words in two or more languages which refer to the same referent with similar sequences of sounds. Since the sequence of sounds that denotes a particular meaning is arbitrary, when we find words from different languages which have systematic phonetic correspondences, we infer that they came from a common parent language. Cognates usually belong to the basic vocabulary (body parts, kinship terms, numerals, household items, and articles and pronouns) inherited from the protolanguage.
表 8.5中的 18 组同源词来自印欧语系的希腊语、拉丁语、梵语和日耳曼语。这些同源词被组织成六组对应音——不同姊妹语言中的声音略有不同,但有系统性,留下了在某一语言中发生的声音变化的痕迹姐妹语言中,其他语言中则不然。表 8.5中的六组声音对应关系在希腊语、拉丁语、梵语和日耳曼语的同源词组中频繁出现,因此我们假设它们所代表的单词在声音和意义上如此相似,一定来自同一个来源。(每个同源词组中的对应声音都以粗体字母表示;右侧列表示这些词中对应声音的语音环境)同源词。
The eighteen sets of cognates in Table 8.5 are drawn from the Indo-European languages Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and Germanic. These sets of cognates are organized into six sets of corresponding sounds – sounds which differ slightly but systematically across the sister languages, leaving traces of sound changes that occurred in one sister language but not in the others. The six sets of sound correspondences in Table 8.5 occur frequently in cognate sets from Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and Germanic, so we assume that the words they represent, so similar in sound and meaning, must have sprung from a common source. (The corresponding sounds in each cognate set are printed in boldface letters; the right-hand column indicates the phonetic environment of the corresponding sounds in those cognates.)
| 希腊语 | 拉丁 | 梵文 | 日耳曼 | 分配 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1a | 馅饼 | 帕特 | 它: | 法达尔 | '父亲' | 词首 |
| 1b | ane p siós ‘表兄弟’ | ne p o:s ‘孙子’ | ná p a:t ‘后裔’ | ne fa(OE)‘侄子’ | 词中 | |
| 1c | 特殊 | s p a š | s佩霍:n | ‘看,间谍’ | 之后 | |
| 1天 | 胡珀 | 极好的 | 乌帕里 | u bar (OHG) | '超过' | 浊音之间† |
| 2a | 特雷斯 | t回复: | 塔拉亚斯 | θ轴 | '三' | 词首 |
| 2b | 短语: t e:r | 兄弟会 | 呂: t a: | 兄弟θ | ‘族人/兄弟’ | 词中 |
| 2c | 我 | 是 | 上午 | 是 | '是' | 之后 |
| 2d | 帕特尔 | 帕特 | pi t á: | 法達爾 | '父亲' | 浊音之间† |
| 3a | (他)k atón | 百 | 萨塔 | 亨达 | ‘100’ | 词首 |
| 3b | dé: k a | 十二月 | 达什阿 | 大韋恩 | ‘10’ | 词中 |
| 3c | 斯科托斯 | 恰亚: | 斯卡杜斯 | ‘黑暗/阴影’ | 之后 | |
| 3D | 赫库拉 | 社会主义 | š va š rú:s | 斯威格(OHG ) | '岳母' | 浊音之间† |
| 4a | b eltíon ‘更好’ | (de:) b ilis ‘弱’ | b áli:ya:n ‘更强’ | p al (LG) ‘坚定’ | 词首 | |
| 4b | du b us(立陶宛语) | 迪普 | '深的' | 词中 | ||
| 5a | 德卡 | 十二月 | 嗎 | 太魂 | ‘10’ | 词首 |
| 5b | é d omai‘我要吃’ | e d o:'我吃' | á d mi ‘我吃’ | e t an (OE) ‘吃’ | 词中 | |
| 6a | g énos ‘亲属’ | ‘部落’ 属 | j ánas ‘种族’ | k uni ‘种族’ | 词首 | |
| 6b | a g rós ‘田野’ | a ger ‘字段’ | á j ras ‘平原’ | æ c er (OE) ‘田野’ | 词中 |
为了重建共同(母)语言的原始音,表 8.5中给出的音对应集在音位分析中被视为音位。假设以对比分布出现的声音是由不同的原始音发展而来的。音对应集 1a–b、2a–b、3a–b、4a–b、5a–b 和 6a–b 是对比的,因为它们在相似的语音条件下出现在词首(在许多情况下出现在词中)。因此,我们推断这些集合中的声音必定来自原始语言中的不同音素。我们推断非对比集合中出现的声音是由单个原始音发展而来的(就像单个语言中的非对比声音被认为是单个基础音素的音位变体一样)。例如,同源集 1a–d 中的p、b和f音不对比:在同源集 1c 中,p在所有四种语言中都出现在s之后;在同源集 1d 中,p(日耳曼语中的b)出现在浊音之间,但前面没有希腊语和梵语中证实的重音;在同源集 1a 和 1b 中,p(日耳曼语中的f)出现在其他地方(词首和词中)。
In order to reconstruct the protosounds of the common (parent) language, the sets of sound correspondences given in Table 8.5 are treated like phones in phonemic analysis. Sounds occurring in contrastive distribution are assumed to have developed from different protosounds. Sound correspondence sets 1a–b, 2a–b, 3a–b, 4a–b, 5a–b, and 6a–b are contrastive, since they occur word-initially (and in many cases word-medially) under similar phonetic conditions. Hence, we infer that the sounds in these sets must come from different phonemes in the protolanguage. We infer that sounds occurring in noncontrastive sets developed from a single protosound (just as noncontrastive sounds in a single language are considered allophones of a single underlying phoneme). For example, the p, b, and f sounds in cognate sets 1a–d do not contrast: in cognate set 1c p occurs after an s in all four languages; in cognate set 1d p (b in Germanic) occurs between voiced sounds when not preceded by an accent attested in Greek and Sanskrit; and in cognate sets 1a and 1b, p (f in Germanic) occurs elsewhere (word-initially and word-medially).
如果我们假设这些声音源自一个原始印欧音素 * p ,而该音素在德语中发生了声音变化,但在希腊语、拉丁语和梵语中没有变化,那么同源集 1a–d 中的语言之间的差异(日耳曼语中的词首和词中 f 和元音之间的 b,其他语言中都有p )是系统性的和可预测的。(原始音素用星号*标记,表示“重建,未直接记录”。)与单一语言中的音系分析一样,该假设遵循多元性标准,因为大多数语言(希腊语、拉丁语和梵语)都有 p。根据这种分析,原始印欧语*p在浊音之间(前面没有重音时)变为浊音bf。这是一个比例如试图解释所有这些不同语言如何以某种方式从日耳曼p、b和fp。它在语音上也更合理。
The differences among the languages in cognate sets 1a–d (word-initial and word-medial f and intervocalic b in Germanic, where the other languages have p) are systematic and predictable if we posit that these sounds have their source in a single Proto-Indo-European phoneme *p which underwent sound changes in German but not in Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. (Protosounds are marked by an asterisk*, which means “reconstructed, not directly documented.”) As in phonological analysis within a single language, this hypothesis follows the criterion of plurality, since the majority of the languages (Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit) have the sound p. Under this analysis, Proto-Indo-European *p remained unchanged in German after an unvoiced s, changed to a voiced b between voiced sounds when not preceded by an accent, and changed to f elsewhere. This is a simpler theory than, for example, trying to explain how all these different languages somehow derived the phoneme p from Germanic p, b, and f. It is also more phonetically plausible.
同源集 2a–d 中的音t、d和θ具有与同源集 1a–d 中的p相同的可预测分布。通过与p相同的推理,我们为这些集合重建原始印欧语* t ,并推断在日耳曼语中它在s之后保持不变,在希腊语和梵语中没有重音的浊音之间变为d ,在其他地方变为θ。
The sounds t, d, and θ in cognate sets 2a–d have the same predictable distribution as p in cognate sets 1a–d. By the same reasoning as for p, we reconstruct a Proto-Indo-European *t for these sets, and infer that in Germanic it remained unchanged after an s, changed to d between voiced sounds not preceded by the accent attested in Greek and Sanskrit, and changed to θ elsewhere.
对于同源集 3a–d,其中的声音也呈互补分布,并遵循与p和t相同的模式,我们重建了原始印欧语* k,并推断出日耳曼语中存在类似的声音变化,其中原始* k在s之后保持不变,在浊音之间变为g ,在其他地方变为h。我们的假设德语中的声音变化得到了普遍性的支持;它为清塞音的自然类别提供了通用解释。(我们还必须假设梵语中的 * k变为腭音š,而组合* sk最初产生ch ,中间产生cch,因此分析并不完整,但它涵盖了大量数据,具有良好的描述准确性,语音合理性。
For cognate sets 3a–d, in which the sounds are also in complementary distribution and follow the same pattern as p and t, we reconstruct a Proto-Indo-European *k, and infer a similar sound change in Germanic in which the proto *k remained unchanged after an s, changed to g between voiced sounds, and changed to h elsewhere. Our hypothesis of sound change in German gains support from its generalizability; it provides a common account of the natural class of voiceless stops. (We must also posit that in Sanskrit *k changed to palatal š and the combination *sk produced ch initially and cch medially, so the analysis is not complete, but it covers a lot of data with good descriptive accuracy and phonetic plausibility.)
利用这种推理,对于同源集 4、5 和 6,我们分别重建了原始印欧语 * b、* d和* g,并假设这些声音在日耳曼语中变成了清音p、t、k,而原始* g在梵语中变成了腭音j。
Using this kind of reasoning, for cognate sets 4, 5, and 6 we reconstruct Proto-Indo-European *b, *d, and *g, respectively, and assume that these sounds became voiceless p, t, k in Germanic and that the proto *g became palatal j in Sanskrit.
通过这一分析,可以重建原始印欧语中的以下音素: * p、* t、* k、* b、* d、* g。有了足够的同源词集,就可以重建原始语言的其余声音,并在此基础上重建其语法和词汇词素、屈折和衍生词系统和其余的语法的结构。
This analysis leads to the reconstruction of the following phonemes in Proto-Indo-European: *p, *t, *k, *b, *d, *g. With enough cognate sets, it would be possible to reconstruct the remaining sounds of the protolanguage, and from this foundation to reconstruct its grammatical and lexical morphemes, inflectional and derivational systems, and the rest of its grammatical structure.
我们刚刚总结的分析过程囊括了 18 世纪末至 19 世纪历史语言学家的一些主要发现。通过观察各种现代语言之间的系统性声音对应关系,历史语言学家重建了它们的共同原始语言,并推断出这些现代语言之间的遗传关系以及其中发生的许多变化。
The analytic process we’ve just summarized encapsulates some of the major findings of historical linguists from the late 1700s through the 1800s. By observing systematic sound correspondences like these among a variety of modern languages, historical linguists reconstructed their common protolanguage, and deduced the genetic relations between those modern languages, as well as many of the changes that had occurred in them.
1786 年,威廉·琼斯爵士发表了一篇论文,描述了梵语、拉丁语和希腊语之间的相似之处。他认为这些相似性过于系统化,不能归因于偶然,并得出结论,它们是从共同的来源发展而来的。琼斯的工作在接下来的几十年里引发了历史语言学的许多进步。1814 年拉斯穆斯·拉斯克 (Rasmus Rask) 正式确立了比较法的技术——汇集同源词并推导规则以解释系统性声音变化,从而重建原始语言。其他语言学家将印欧语系谱扩展到波斯语和日耳曼语。
In 1786, Sir William Jones delivered a paper describing similarities between Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek. He argued that these similarities were too systematic to be attributable to chance and concluded that they had developed from a common source. Jones’s work sparked many advances in historical linguistics over the next several decades. In 1814 Rasmus Rask formalized the techniques of the comparative method – assembling cognates and deducing rules to account for systematic sound changes to reconstruct protolanguages. Other linguists extended the Indo-European family tree to include Persian and the Germanic languages.
1822 年,雅各布·格林(Jacob Grimm,一位语言学家,同时也是一位德国民间故事收藏家)描述了从 PIE 辅音到日耳曼辅音的系统性转变,这一转变后来被称为格林定律。例如,根据格林定律,PIE 清塞音 [ptk] 变成日耳曼清擦音 [f θ h],PIE 浊塞音 [bdg] 变成日耳曼清塞音 [ptk],从而解释了表 8.5中的声音对应关系。格林定律还解释了许多其他日耳曼辅音的转变,证明了日耳曼语言与罗曼语之间的遗传关系。格林定律也有例外,但它们与特定的语音环境系统地相关,这使得解释这些例外的历史语言学家能够发现更多关于原始印欧语及其子语系后续变化的信息 语言。
In 1822 Jacob Grimm (a linguist as well as a collector of German folktales) described the systematic shift from the PIE consonants to the Germanic consonants, which subsequently became known as Grimm’s Law. For example, according to Grimm’s Law, PIE voiceless stops [p t k] became Germanic voiceless fricatives [f θ h] and PIE voiced stops [b d g] became Germanic voiceless stops [p t k], accounting for the sets of sound correspondences in Table 8.5. Grimm’s Law explained a number of other Germanic consonant shifts as well, making the case for the genetic relation of the Germanic languages to the Romance languages. There were exceptions to Grimm’s Law, but they were systematically related to specific phonetic environments, allowing historical linguists accounting for these exceptions to discover even more about Proto-Indo-European and subsequent changes in its daughter languages.
从我们对 PIE 浊音和清音塞音的重构中可以看出,比较法非常成功地展示了原始音是什么样子的,每种同源语言音系史前史的一些方面,以及它们之间的差异。然而,重构的声音在语音上不如它们所基于的同源声音精确。毫不奇怪,比较法该方法可以重建原始语言模型,该模型是规则的、无变化的,而现实中的语言具有大量的不规则性和变化。
As you can see from our reconstruction of PIE voiced and voiceless stops, the comparative method is highly successful in showing what the protosounds were like, some aspects of the prehistory of the phonologies of each of the cognate languages, and ways in which they differ from each other. However, reconstructed sounds are less precise phonetically than the cognate sounds on which they are based. Not surprisingly, the comparative method leads to a reconstructed model of the protolanguage which is regular and variation-free, whereas in reality languages have substantial irregularity and variation.
与依赖于相关语言之间形式比较的比较重构不同,内部重构依赖于单一语言中形式的分析。语言历史上的一些形态音素变化在其当前形式中留下了明显的痕迹,因此通过分析这些痕迹,我们可以重构一些形态素的早期形式以及导致其当前形式的变化。为了证实或完善假定的原始语言重构,通常会比较比较证据和内部证据。
Unlike comparative reconstruction, which relies on the comparison of forms across related languages, internal reconstruction relies on analysis of forms within a single language. Some morphophonemic changes in the history of a language leave noticeable traces in its current forms, so that by analyzing these traces we can reconstruct earlier forms of some morphemes and the changes which led to their current forms. Comparative and internal evidence are often compared for corroboration or refinement of a posited reconstruction of a protolanguage.
之前我们看到,声音变化往往会通过产生异形词而引起形态变化。 例如,古高地德语有成对的交替词形变体:lamb ~ lemb,kalb ~ kelb,以及blat ~ blet,如下所示:
Earlier we saw that sound change tends to cause morphological change by creating allomorphs. For example, Old High German had pairs of alternating allomorphs: lamb ~ lemb, kalb ~ kelb, and blat ~ blet, as follows:
| 主格单数 | 主格复数 | |
| 羊肉 | 伦比尔 | '羊肉' |
| 卡尔布 | 克尔比尔 | '小牛' |
| 布拉特 | 布莱提尔 | '叶子' |
我们可以推断,这些同位异形中的 /a/ ~ /e/ 交替源自单个音素 /a/,该音素在 /-ir/ 之前变为 /e/。这在语音上是合理的,因为后元音在前元音之前包含前元音的后缀是一种常见的语音变化(同化)。仅使用古高地德语的事实,我们可以推断出该语言的早期形式对于这些词(lamb、kalb和blat)只有一个主格词素,直到声音变化(同化(英语:同化)导致了新的同质异形词的发展。
We can infer that the /a/ ~ /e/ alternation in these allomorphs springs from a single phoneme /a/, which became /e/ before /-ir/. This is phonetically plausible because the fronting of a back vowel before a suffix containing a front vowel is a common phonetic change (assimilation). Using just the facts of Old High German, we can deduce that earlier forms of the language had only one nominative morpheme for each of these words (lamb, kalb, and blat), until a sound change (assimilation) led to the development of new allomorphs.
除了帮助我们更好地理解语言的结构、语言随时间的变化范围以及语言变化的过程之外,历史语言学还能帮助我们了解早期语言使用者的文化背景。历史语言学家就像考古学家一样,将语言遗迹拼凑在一起,通过解读重建的语言来更好地理解早期文明。例如,在印欧语系中,我们发现与“狗”有关的词(希腊语kú ō n、拉丁语canis、梵语š ván、古英语hund),但没有与“猫”有关的词(希腊语aiélouros、拉丁语f ē l ē s、梵语m ā rj ā r、古英语catt)。这告诉我们,原始印欧语使用者熟悉狗(因为其子语言中有源自常见 PIE 词的“狗”同源词),但不熟悉猫(因为子语言独立创造或借用了“猫”的新词)。此类证据可用于确定使用者的原始故乡、文化以及活动和信仰的性质。
In addition to helping us better understand the structure of language, its range of variation over time, and the processes by which it can change, historical linguistics also sheds light on the cultural contexts of speakers of earlier languages. Historical linguists are like archaeologists, piecing together linguistic artifacts in order to better understand earlier civilizations through the interpretation of their reconstructed languages. For example, in Indo-European languages we find related words with the meaning ‘dog’ (Greek kúōn, Latin canis, Sanskrit šván, Old English hund), but no related words for ‘cat’ (Greek aiélouros, Latin fēlēs, Sanskrit mārjār, Old English catt). This tells us that speakers of Proto-Indo-European were familiar with dogs (because its daughter languages have cognates for ‘dog’ stemming from a common PIE word) but not cats (because the daughter languages independently coined or borrowed new words for ‘cat’). Evidence of this kind can be used to determine the original homeland of the speakers, their culture, and the nature of their activities and beliefs.
语言会随着时间而变化,以适应其使用者不断变化的情况和需求。因此,语言变化的历史记录可以揭示其语言社区的文化和物质发展。例如,由于早期日耳曼语的书写是在木头、骨头和石头上完成的,因此古英语wr ī tan(写)是“刮擦”。(在新高地德语中, write的同源词是reissen,仍表示“撕扯、刮擦”,在荷兰语中是rijten,表示撕扯。”)当拉丁语scr ī bere(书写)被借入古英语时,write的语义被扩展为包括“抄写员、书写”。借用词scribe在古英语中被语音改编为shrive,最终变得更加局限于技术性的宗教意义,即“听取忏悔并给予赦免”。因此,作为借词的shrive和具有其扩展意义的write不仅说明了借用对形式意义和使用的影响,而且追溯了语言中概念的历史和关系。语言。
Languages change over time to meet the changing situations and needs of their speakers. Consequently, the historical record of a language’s changes sheds light on the cultural and material development of its speech community. For example, since early Germanic writing was done on wood, bone, and stone, the original meaning of Old English wrītan (write) was ‘scratch.’ (In New High German, the cognate of write is reissen, which still means ‘tear, scratch,’ and in Dutch it is rijten ‘to tear.’) When the Latin word scrībere ‘to write’ was borrowed into Old English, the semantics of write was extended to include ‘scribe, write.’ The borrowed word scribe was phonetically adapted as shrive in Old English and eventually became more restricted to a technical religious meaning of ‘to hear confession and give absolution.’ Thus shrive, as a loan word, and write with its extended meaning, not only illustrate the impact of borrowing on the meaning and use of a form, but trace the history and relations of concepts in the language.
所有语言都会随着时间而变化,以适应其语言社区不断变化的环境和需求。本章中描述的语言变化类型和机制在所有语言中始终存在(尽管变化速度各不相同)。语言是灵活的系统,不断寻求简化和复杂化之间的平衡,在保持有序性的同时吸收新的影响。语言变化的推动力包括“外部”力量,例如与其他语言和文化的接触(以及借用词汇),以及“内部”力量,例如发音的简化和规则化,这是语言持续进化的一部分,以保持稳定的语音和意义系统。共时(方言和语域)变化通过一代又一代儿童的语言习得为历时变化提供了动力。
All languages change over time, adapting to meet the changing contexts and needs of their speech communities. The kinds and the mechanisms of language change described in this chapter are operating all the time in all languages (although the pace of change varies). Languages are flexible systems that continually seek a balance between simplification and elaboration, incorporating new influences while preserving orderliness. Language change is motivated by “external” forces, such as contact with other languages and cultures (and the borrowing of words), and by “internal” forces, such as articulatory simplification and regularization, part of a language’s ongoing evolution to maintain a stable sound and meaning system. Synchronic (dialect and register) variation provides the fuel for diachronic change, through the language acquisition of successive generations of children.
语言的各个方面都会随时间而变化,包括语音、形态、句法和语义,以及语言社区适当使用语言的规范。共时音位变体过程(例如同化和异化、删除和插入、延长和重新排序声音)会导致语言音位系统的历时变化。音素合并和分裂,有时会产生音素链转移。形态变化通常涉及语言格标记系统的简化或细化,而句法变化通常涉及句子词序的变化。词义可以扩大或缩小,或具有新的评价关联。新指称的词可以是新创造的,也可以是从其他语言借用的。
All facets of a language change over time – its phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, as well as the speech community’s norms for appropriately using the language. Synchronic allophonic processes – such as assimilation and dissimilation, deletion and insertion, lengthening and reordering of sounds – result in diachronic changes in a language’s phonological system. Phonemes merge and split, sometimes creating chains of phoneme shifts. Morphological changes often involve simplification or elaboration of the language’s system of case marking, while syntactic changes often involve changes in the word order of sentences. The meanings of words can broaden or narrow, or take on new evaluative associations. Words for new referents can be coined fresh, or borrowed from other languages.
语言变化有力地证明了语言的各个组成部分是相互依存的:音系变化会导致形态和句法变化,词汇变化(如借用)会导致音系变化。语言变化留下的痕迹使历史语言学家能够组合两种或多种语言中的同源词,建立形式对应关系,并重建母语的形式。根据这些证据,他们可以确定同一语系中不同语言之间的历史关系,并重建早期的原始语言,从而深入了解史前民族的文化和关系。
Language change provides strong evidence that the various components of language are crucially interdependent: phonological changes can lead to morphological and syntactic changes, lexical changes like borrowing can lead to phonological changes. The traces left by changes in languages allow historical linguists to assemble cognates in two or more languages, establish sets of form correspondences, and reconstruct the forms of the parent language. From this evidence they can determine historical relations between languages within a language family and reconstruct earlier protolanguages, which provide insights into the cultures and relations of prehistorical peoples.
原始印欧语 – 古波斯语。编写影响原始印欧语唇音和齿音塞音和元音在古波斯语中演变的变化规则。(您可能需要查看条件和非条件声音变化部分。)古波斯语中的变化是音位变化还是仅仅是同位异音?请注意,第 8 项来自阿维斯陀语,它是古波斯语的姊妹语;但是,在这种情况下,不要让它影响您的规则。
Proto-Indo-European – Old Persian. Write rules for the changes affecting the evolution of Proto-Indo-European labial and dental stop consonants and vowels in Old Persian. (You may want to review the sections on conditioned and unconditioned sound change.) Are the changes in Old Persian phonemic or merely allophonic? Notice the item in 8 is from Avestan, a sister of Old Persian; however, in this case don’t let it affect your rules.
| 原始印欧语 | 古波斯语 | ||
| 1. | 帕特: r | 皮塔饼: | '父亲' |
| 2. | 载脂蛋白 | 心理学家协会 | '离开' |
| 3. | 赞成 | 弗拉 | '前' |
| 4. | b h评分:te:r | 胸罩:TA: | '兄弟' |
| 5. | ub h o: | 乌巴: | '两个都' |
| 6. | 焦油 | 焦油 | ‘跨越’ |
| 7. | 埃蒂 | 阿蒂 | '超过' |
| 8. | triti:哟 | θ ritiya(阿维斯陀语) | '第三' |
| 9. | dwiti:哟 | 德维蒂:亚 | '第二' |
| 10. | 佩德 | 软垫 | '脚' |
| 11. | dh工作 | 杜瓦尔 | '门' |
| 12. | dhé : | 大: | '放' |
梵语 – 巴利语。写出影响巴利语中梵语辅音群演变的变化规则。(您可能希望查看关于声音变化过程的部分中关于同化的讨论。)[ ʈ ɖ ] = 卷舌塞音,[s] = 齿龈咝音,[ ʂ ] = 卷舌咝音,[ ʃ ] = 腭咝音,[ ɽ ] = 卷舌舌音,[ ɳ ] = 卷舌鼻音)
Sanskrit – Pali. Write rules for the changes affecting the evolution of Sanskrit consonant clusters in Pali. (You may want to review the discussion of assimilation in the section on the processes of sound change.) [ʈ ɖ] = retroflex stops, [s] = alveolar sibilant, [ʂ] = retroflex sibilant, [ʃ] = palatal sibilant, [ɽ] = retroflex flap, [ɳ] = retroflex nasal)
第 1 部分。下列例子表明了什么规则?
Part 1. What rule is indicated by the following examples?
| 梵文 | 巴利语 | ||
| 1. | 布胡克塔 | 布胡塔 | ‘享受’ |
| 2. | 卡哈ɖ嘎 | 卡加 | '剑' |
| 3. | 尤克塔 | 尤塔 | '团结的' |
第二部分:对于送气塞音,这条规则需要做哪些修改?
Part II: What modifications to this rule need to be made for aspirated stops?
| 4. | 杜格德哈 | 杜德哈 | '牛奶' |
| 5. | 萨德布·哈瓦 | 安息日 | “感觉很好” |
| 6. | 拉布德哈 | 拉德哈 | '获得' |
第三部分:现在考虑流态和塞音的同化。规则应如何修改?
Part III: Now consider the assimilation of liquids and stops. How should the rule be modified?
| 7. | 阿尔帕 | 阿帕 | '很少' |
| 8. | 瓦尔卡拉 | 瓦卡拉 | ‘树皮’ |
| 9. | 劫 | 卡帕 | ‘一世’ |
| 10. | 磷:伊古纳 | 響鳴 | 月份名称 |
| 11. | 恰克拉 | 恰卡 | '车轮' |
| 12. | 玛:rga | 玛嘎 | '小路' |
| 13. | 奇特拉 | 契塔 | '图片' |
| 14. | 艺术哈 | 艾特哈 | '意义' |
| 15. | 巴哈德拉 | 巴哈阿达 | “一个好人” |
第四部分:哪些规则描述塞音和鼻音的同化?
Part IV: What rule(s) describe(s) the assimilation of stops and nasals?
| 16. | 纳格纳 | 纳加 | '裸' |
| 17. | 阿格尼 | 阿吉 | '火' |
| 18. | 毗旯那 | 维格哈 | ‘骚乱’ |
| 19. | 萨帕特尼: | 沙瓦提 | “同妻” |
| 20. | 尤格玛 | 尤加 | '双' |
第五部分:哪些规则控制着鼻音与液体和其他鼻音的同化?
Part V: What rule(s) govern(s) the assimilation of nasals with liquids and other nasals?
| 21. | 达摩 | 法 | '法律' |
| 22. | 卡ɼɳ a | 卡ɼɳɳ a | '耳朵' |
| 23. | 古尔马 | 树胶 | “一丛灌木” |
| 24. | 詹玛 | 贾玛 | ‘出生’ |
| 25. | 尼姆纳 | 忍者 | '深的' |
| 26. | 普ɳ雅 | pu ɳɳ a | ‘善举’ |
| 27. | 萨米亚 | 索马 | ‘平静’ |
第六部分:写下解释所有这些同化变化的规则。
Part VI: Write down the rules that account for all these assimilatory changes.
印地语。 (A)中印地语中咝音 [s ʃ ʂ ]的音位地位是什么?(B)中从梵语借来的词如何影响该地位?
Hindi. What is the phonemic status of the sibilants [s ʃ ʂ] in Hindi given in (A) and how is this status affected by the words borrowed from Sanskrit given in (B)?
| (一个) |
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| (二) |
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印地语。分布是什么以下数据(A)中的印地语中卷舌辅音 [ ɖ ] 和 [ ɽ ] 的分布情况如何?(B)中从梵语、英语和葡萄牙语借入印地语的词汇又如何影响这种分布情况?
Hindi. What is the distribution of the retroflex consonants [ɖ] and [ɽ] in the following data from Hindi in (A) and how is this distribution affected by the words borrowed into Hindi from Sanskrit, English, and Portuguese in (B)?
| (一个) |
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| (二) |
|
英语。以下例子表明,早期英语中的一些清擦音在现代英语中已变为浊音。确定清音发生的音系条件。同时说明清音在现代英语中引起的形态变化(参见音系和形态变化部分,特别是与变体有关的部分)。在古英语中,th表示清擦音。
English. The following examples show that some voiceless fricatives of earlier English have become voiced in Modern English. Determine the phonological condition under which the voicing occurs. Also state the morphological changes which the voicing of the fricatives creates in Modern English (see the sections on phonological and morphological change, especially the parts relating to allomorphs). In Old English th represents a voiceless fricative.
| 古英语 | 现代英语 | |
| 1. | 礼物 | 礼物 |
| 2. | 雑饭 | 给 |
| 3. | 李:f | 生活 |
| 4. | 莉菲安 | 居住 |
| 5. | 巴埃特 | 洗澡 |
| 6. | 巴希安 | 洗澡 |
| 7. | 索思 | 抚慰 |
| 8. | 所以:天 | 抚慰 |
| 9. | 格拉斯 | 草 |
| 10. | 格拉西安 | 轻擦 |
| 11. | 玻璃 | 玻璃 |
| 12. | glassen(中古英语) | 釉 |
英语。以下是中世纪英语的样本文本,来自乔叟的《梅里比的故事》(约1380 年)。对于每个句子,描述其形态、句法、语义和词汇项目与现代英语有何不同。括号中给出了现代英语的对应词。(有关中世纪英语的更多示例,请参阅 Algeo 1972:159。)
English. The following is a sample text of Middle English, from Chaucer’s The Tale of Melibee (c. 1380). For each sentence, describe how the morphology, syntax, semantics, and lexical items differ from present-day English. The present-day English equivalents are given in the parentheses. (For more examples from Middle English see Algeo 1972: 159.)
下面,确定所涉及的语义变化的类型(扩大、缩小、转喻等)。
In the following, identify the kind of semantic change involved (broadening, narrowing, metonymy, etc.).
重构原始语言的元音并写出声音变化的规则。忽略重音和括号项。
Reconstruct the vowels for the protolanguage and write rules for the sound changes. Ignore the accent and parenthetical items.
| 梵文 | 希腊语 | ||
| 1. | 萨达斯 | 埃多斯 | '座位' |
| 2. | 阿斯蒂 | 艾斯蒂 | '是' |
| 3. | 人民 | 格诺斯 | “种族、人民” |
| 4. | 帕蒂斯 | 位置 | '丈夫' |
| 5. | 达玛 | 家 | '房子' |
| 6. | 阿维 | ó(w)是 | '羊' |
| 7. | 阿杰拉斯 | 农业 | '场地' |
| 8. | 阿帕 | 阿波 | ‘远离,远离’ |
| 9. | 反对 | 反对 | ‘对面,附近’ |
| 10. | 更多 | 人 | '月' |
| 11. | 萨米 | e:mi- | '一半' |
| 12. | 是: | 我: | ‘不(禁止)’ |
| 13. | á: š u | 噢:可愛 | '迅速' |
| 14. | 拍 | 帖子 | '脚' |
| 15. | 達南 | dô:ron | '礼物' |
| 16. | sva:dú- | 噢 | '甜的' |
| 17. | 妈妈: | 玛蒂:拉 | '母亲' |
| 18. | 圣灵降临: | 短语 | ‘兄弟,部落成员’ |
| 19. | é:dh(as) | 啊(哦:) | ‘燃料,燃烧’ |
| 20. | 艾蒂 | ei ̃ si | “他走了” |
| 21. | 吠陀 | 噢噢噢 | '我知道' |
| 22. | šo ʂ a- | 噢 | ‘干涸,干燥’ |
| 23. | 菩提(a:mi) | 佩特(omai) | “我观察,发现” |
| 24. | 羅卡 | 莱乌科斯 | '亮度' |
希腊语。通过内部重构,重构希腊语早期主格形式的形态并指出所发生的变化。
Greek. By means of internal reconstruction, reconstruct the shapes of the nominative forms in an earlier stage of Greek and indicate the changes that have taken place.
| '农奴' | '优雅' | '希望' | '鸟' | ‘老人’ | |
| 主格 | θ é:s | χ ápis | 埃尔皮斯 | 奥里: | ɣ éro:n |
| 属格 | θe :t | χ阿皮托斯 | 埃尔皮杜什 | óri: θ os | ɣ éro:ntos |
| 与格 | θe :ti | χ阿皮蒂 | 埃尔皮迪 | óri: θ i | ɣ 埃罗:恩蒂 |
关于人类语言,给我们留下深刻印象的一个核心事实就是语言的巨大多样性。当今世界上有 5,000 到 8,000 种语言,所有使用者人数较多的语言都至少包含一些亚变体。此外,语言会随着时间的推移而发生变化,任何现代英语使用者,只要曾经尝试读过莎士比亚的作品,或者看过老好莱坞电影,都会告诉你这一点。在本章中,我们将重点关注语言内部的变异或方言变异。我们将探讨不同类型的方言变异:地区、社会阶层、民族、性别和风格。我们将研究语言多个不同层面上的变异模式,包括词语及其含义(词汇变异)、发音(音系变异)、句子结构(句法变异或形态句法变异),甚至语言使用的惯例(语用变异或话语变异)。我们还将研究某一特定时刻的方言变异与语言随时间变化或语言变化之间的复杂联系。最后,我们考虑了全球化日益发展的时代方言变异的命运,并得出了一些令人惊讶的结论。我们大多数方言变异的例子都来自英语;然而,几乎所有语言都富含变异。在开始之前,我们必须仔细研究一些关于方言变异性质的普遍看法,在仔细检查方言变异的实际数据后,这些看法被证明是错误的。
One of the central facts about human language that strikes us right away is its immense variability. There are anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 languages in the world today, and all of those with more than a handful of speakers contain at least some subvarieties. In addition, languages exhibit variation over time, as any modern speaker of English who has ever tried to read Shakespeare, or even watch an old Hollywood movie, can tell you. In this chapter, our focus is on variation within languages, or dialect variation. We will explore the different types of dialect variation: regional, social class, ethnic, gender, and stylistic. We will look at patterns of variation on a number of different levels of language, including words and their meanings (lexical variation), pronunciations (phonological variation), sentence structures (syntactic variation or morphosyntactic variation), and even conventions for language use (pragmatic variation or discourse variation). We will also take a look at the intricate bond between dialect variation at any given moment in time and language variation over time, or language change. Finally, we consider the fate of dialect variation in an era of increasing globalization and find some surprising conclusions. Most of our examples of dialect variation are from English; however, nearly all languages are rich with variation. Before we begin, we must take a close look at some common beliefs about the nature of dialect variation which, upon closer inspection of actual data on dialect variation, turn out to be mistaken.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
许多人将“语言”一词(如“英语”或“法语”)等同于标准语言——即在教学语法书和使用指南中被认为是正确的语言版本,并在教育、工作场所和政府中使用。由于标准与教育和成熟度相关,因此其他语言变体通常被认为是语言的低级版本——可能没有标准版本那么完整,或者与标准版本相比可能“混乱”。然而,对于语言学家来说,语言不仅仅是语言的标准版本,而是构成它的所有变体的总和。此外, 社会语言学(研究语言在社会背景下的表现)表明,所有语言变体(包括那些与“标准”或社会地位相当不同的变体)都同样复杂、有规律,并且能够充当表达其使用者想要传达的任何信息的载体。因此,方言一词不带有任何负面含义,而只是一个中性标签,指代任何语言变体,包括标准变体。在本章中,我们以这种中性含义使用方言一词。此外,为了区分不受社会青睐的方言和更受青睐的变体,我们有时会使用非标准方言或白话方言一词。同样,这里不包含任何负面含义,非标准方言不应等同于不标准方言。
Many people equate the term “language,” as in “the English language” or “the French language,” with the standard language – that is, that version of the language held to be correct in pedagogical grammar books and usage guides and used in education, the workplace, and the government. Because the standard is associated with education and sophistication, other varieties of the language are often considered to be lesser versions of the language – perhaps not as fully formed, or maybe “sloppy” in comparison with the standard. However, to the linguist, a language isn’t just the standard version of the language but rather the sum of all the varieties that comprise it. Further, sociolinguistics (the study of language in its social context) has demonstrated that all varieties of language – including those quite far removed from “standard” or socially prestigious varieties – are equally complex, regularly patterned, and capable of serving as vehicles for the expression of any message their speakers might wish to communicate. Hence, the term dialect carries no negative connotations but is simply a neutral label to refer to any variety of a language, including the standard variety. Throughout this chapter, we use the term dialect in this neutral sense. In addition, in order to distinguish dialects that do not happen to be socially favored from more favored varieties, we will sometimes use the term nonstandard dialect or vernacular dialect. Again, no negative connotations are implied, and nonstandard should not be equated with substandard.
还要注意的是,方言不同于俚语或行话。方言一词用于指代整个语言种类,具有语言模式各个层次的特征(例如,音系、语法和词汇)。而俚语一词主要用于谈论词汇。此外,俚语通常带有某种非中性的社会意义,通常具有语气更中性的非俚语同义词。(例如,比较一下 wack和strange或kick the bucket和die。)此外,俚语通常被认为是短暂的,但实际上,一些“俚语”已经存在了几代人。(例如,俚语dough代表“钱”,flunk代表“不及格”,至少从 20 世纪初就已经存在了。)术语也属于语言的词汇层面,指与特定活动领域相关的术语——例如,计算机术语或法律术语。还有一点是,方言与口音不同,因为口音仅指语言的语音层面,而方言又以所有语言特征为特征。 水平。
It is also important to note that dialects are not the same thing as slang or jargon. The term dialect is used to refer to an entire language variety, with features on all levels of language patterning (for example, phonology, grammar, and the lexicon). The term slang, on the other hand, is used chiefly to talk about lexical items. In addition, slang words typically carry some sort of non-neutral social meaning and usually have non-slang synonyms that are more neutral in tone. (Compare, for example, wack vs. strange or kick the bucket vs. die.) Further, slang words are usually considered to be short-lived, though, in reality, some “slang” terms have been around for generations. (For example, the terms dough for ‘money’ and flunk for ‘fail’ have been around since at least the early twentieth century.) Jargon also pertains to the lexical level of language and refers to terms associated with a particular sphere of activity – for example, computer jargon or legal jargon. A further point is that dialect is not the same thing as accent, since accent refers only to the phonological level of language, and dialects, again, are characterized by features on all linguistic levels.
当我们思考“语言”、“方言”和相关术语时,最后一个问题是如何确定某种语言是否应该被归类为另一种更大语言的方言,或者它是否应该“算作”一种独立的语言。乍一看,我们似乎可以应用一些相对简单的标准:如果两种语言在语言上非常相似,并且 相互之间无法相互理解(即,如果一种语言的使用者可以理解另一种语言的使用者,反之亦然),那么它们似乎应该算作一种语言的方言。相反,语言上截然不同且无法相互理解的语言应该被归类为不同的语言。但实际上,将语言种类标记为“语言”或“方言”通常要复杂一些,而“算作”方言与语言的关系与文化和政治问题的关系比语言问题更大(可能更大)。因此,例如,不同的中文种类(例如粤语、普通话)在语言上彼此截然不同,无法相互理解(至少在口语上),但这些种类的使用者通常认为自己是单一语言的使用者,即中文。另一方面,瑞典语和挪威语被认为是两种不同的语言,在语言上非常相似,许多使用者可以轻松理解对方。
A final issue that arises as we think about “language,” “dialect,” and related terms is how to determine whether a particular language variety should be classified as a dialect of another, larger language or whether it should “count” as a language in its own right. At first glance, it might seem that we could apply some relatively straightforward criteria: if two varieties are very similar linguistically and are mutually intelligible (that is, if the speakers of one variety can understand the speakers of the other and vice versa), then it seems that they should count as dialects of a single language. Conversely, varieties that are linguistically quite distinct and are not mutually intelligible should probably be classified as separate languages. In reality though, labeling varieties as “languages” or “dialects” is usually a bit more complicated, and what “counts” as a dialect vs. a language has as much – probably more – to do with cultural and political issues than with linguistic ones. Thus, for example, the different varieties of Chinese (e.g. Cantonese, Mandarin) are linguistically quite different from one another and are not mutually intelligible (at least in spoken form), and yet speakers of these varieties typically consider themselves to be speakers of a single language, Chinese. On the other hand, Swedish and Norwegian, which are considered two separate languages, are linguistically very similar, and many of their speakers can easily understand one another.
此外,语言分类和语言变体之间的关系可能会发生变化,因此,曾经被认为是单一、更大的语言的一部分的变体可能会被认为是独立的语言,甚至可能因此在语言上变得更加不同。例如,塞尔维亚-克罗地亚语在前南斯拉夫的大部分地区使用,现在其使用者认为至少是三种不同的语言,塞尔维亚语、克罗地亚语和波斯尼亚语,塞尔维亚语是塞尔维亚的官方语言,克罗地亚语是克罗地亚的官方语言,这三种语言都是波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那的官方语言。这三种语言之间的差异也越来越大,特别是在词汇和语音层面,语言规划人员也在试图引入额外的区别。
In addition, linguistic classifications and relations between language varieties can change, so that varieties once considered to be part of a single, larger language may come to be thought of as separate languages and may even become more linguistically different from one another as a result. For example, the Serbo-Croatian language, spoken in much of the area comprising the former Yugoslavia, is now considered by its speakers to be at least three different languages, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian, with Serbian being the official language of Serbia, Croatian the official language of Croatia, and all three the official languages of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The three languages are also becoming somewhat more different from one another, especially on the lexical and phonological levels, and language planners are attempting to introduce additional distinctions as well.
再次强调,对于语言学家和语言学研究来说,重要的不是我们选择将一种变体称为“语言”还是“方言”,也不是我们选择将某一变体作为“标准”,而是所有语言变体,无论其标签或政治或社会地位如何,在语言学上都是同样完善的,并且按照精确的模式或方式运作。規則。
Again, the important point for linguists, and for linguistic study, is not whether we choose to call a variety a “language” or a “dialect,” or whether we choose to uphold a particular variety as a “standard,” but that all language varieties, no matter what their label or their political or social standing, are equally linguistically well formed and operate according to precise patterns or rules.
那么,当我们说方言有规律地模式化时,我们到底是什么意思呢?标准变体或标准方言有模式,这似乎是显而易见的。毕竟,语法诸如“由形容词派生的副词通常以 - 结尾”之类的规则,例如She took a slow walk与She gone slow,本质上是模式的明确陈述。但是,并非所有关于我们如何构词、造句或发音的规则都有记录。相反,它们是我们对语言规律的无意识知识的一部分。例如,所有以英语为母语的人都知道,在the red house或the blue book这样的短语中,形容词通常位于名词之前。然而,这种形容词位置规则并没有出现在任何针对以英语为母语的人的语法教学书中,也没有以英语为母语的人需要有意识地学习它。 在其他语言中,存在不同的模式;例如,在西班牙语中,我们发现la casa roja(字面意思是“红色的房子”)表示“红房子”,el libro azul(字面意思是“蓝色的书”)表示“蓝书”。虽然这种模式与英语的模式非常不同,但它同样系统化。我们在英语和其他语言的非标准方言中发现的模式也是如此。
So what exactly do we mean when we say that dialects are regularly patterned? It probably seems obvious that the standard variety or standard dialect has patterns. After all, grammar rules such as “Adverbs derived from adjectives usually take -ly endings,” as in She took a slow walk vs. She walked slowly, are essentially explicit statements of patterns. However, not all rules for how we form words, put words into sentences, or pronounce things are written down. Rather, they are part of our unconscious knowledge of the regular patterning of our language. For example, all native English speakers know that adjectives usually come before nouns in phrases like the red house or the blue book. Yet this rule for adjective placement does not appear in any pedagogical grammar books for native speakers, and no native speaker ever had to consciously learn it. In other languages, there are different patterns; for example, in Spanish we find phrases like la casa roja (literally ‘the house red’) for ‘the red house’ and el libro azul (literally, ‘the book blue’) for ‘the blue book.’ And while this pattern is very different from the English one, it is nonetheless equally systematic. The same holds true for the patterns we find in nonstandard dialects of English and other languages.
例如,在阿巴拉契亚英语等一些历史上孤立的美国英语方言中发现的一个特点是使用在某些 -ing 词上加 -前缀(发音为 [ ə ]),如He went a -huntin'。这种特征称为-前缀,在任何语法教学书中都没有出现,学校也不会教它的用法。但是,它确实有规律的模式——它可以出现和不能出现的地方——即使人们没有意识到它们。另一个使用受无意识规则支配的特征的例子是在某些单词位置减少或删除r,如 [fi ǝ ] 表示fear和 [fa:m] 表示farm。这一特征通常被称为r缺失,在美国某些地区和社会方言以及标准英国中都有发现 英语。
For example, a feature found in a number of historically isolated dialects of American English, such as Appalachian English, is the use of an a-prefix (pronounced [ə]) on certain -ing words, as in He went a-huntin’. This feature, called a-prefixing, does not appear in any pedagogical grammar books and its usage is not taught in school. However, it does have regular patterns – where it can and cannot appear – even if people aren’t consciously aware of them. Another example of a feature whose usage is governed by unconscious rules is reduction or deletion of r in certain word positions, as in [fiǝ] for fear and [fa:m] for farm. This feature is often referred to as r-lessness and is found in certain regional and social dialects in the US and in standard British English.
如果非标准方言和标准方言一样有规律,那么为什么有些方言比其他方言更受社会重视呢?坦率地说,这主要是时尚问题。举个例子,让我们考虑一下r -lessness。这一特点是标准英式英语 (标准发音,或 RP) 最显著的特征之一,标准英式英语通常被认为是世界上最负盛名的英语变体之一。但有趣的是,真正的英国人并不总是使用无r的发音。事实上,直到 18 世纪,r -lessness 才开始在整个英格兰传播,从英国东南部的文化和政治生活中心向外传播,最终取代r发音成为声望规范的一部分。在大西洋的另一边,r有着完全相反的历史。第二次世界大战之前,r -lessness 被认为是美国语音中一个负盛名的特征。从那时起,它就不再受社会青睐,说话带有无r口音的美国人,比如纽约人和一些南方人,现在被认为不如通常发r音的人“正确”。
If nonstandard dialects are just as regularly patterned as those that are considered standard, then why are some varieties more highly socially valued than others? Frankly, it’s mostly a matter of fashion. As an example, let’s consider the case of r-lessness. This feature is one of the most noticeable characteristics of standard British English (Received Pronunciation, or RP), often considered to be one of the most prestigious varieties of English in the world. Interestingly, though, proper Brits didn’t always use r-less pronunciations. In fact, it wasn’t until the eighteenth century that r-lessness began to spread through England, outward from the center of British cultural and political life in the southeast, eventually ousting r-pronunciation as part of the prestige norm. On the other side of the Atlantic, r had exactly the opposite history. Prior to World War II, r-lessness was considered to be a prestigious feature of American speech. Since that time, it has fallen out of social favor, and Americans who speak with r-less accents, such as New Yorkers and some Southerners, are now considered to be less “correct” than those who typically pronounce r’s.
本章末尾的练习 9.1提供了阿巴拉契亚英语中a-前缀的数据,并指导您完成发现其模式规则所需的步骤。即使您不是阿巴拉契亚英语的母语人士或不太熟悉该方言,您也应该能够利用您对语言变异的常规模式的无意识知识来发现这些规则。如果您不是如果你是英语母语人士,那么你可能在做这个练习时会遇到更多困难,但你可能会惊讶地发现,你对英语中潜意识变化规则的了解比你想象的要多。你可以在与此相关的网站上找到一个练习,让你发现美国新英格兰地区r- lessness 的模式文本。
Exercise 9.1 at the end of the chapter provides data on a-prefixing in Appalachian English and takes you through the steps necessary to discover the rules governing its patterning. You should be able to use your unconscious knowledge of the regular patterning of language variation to discover these rules even if you are not a native speaker of Appalachian English or are not very familiar with the dialect. If you are not a native speaker of English, you may have more difficulty with this exercise, but you may be surprised to find that you know more about unconscious rules for variation in English than you think you do. An exercise enabling you to discover the patterning of r-lessness in the New England region of the US can be found on the companion website to this text.
随着时间的推移,不同英语变体中r的命运不断变化,以及标准英式英语重视 r的缺失,而标准美式英语则贬低 r 的缺失,这些都告诉我们,发r的音与不发 r 的音本身并没有什么“更好”或“更坏”之处。相反,这完全取决于谁以何种方式说话:如果社会精英或其他广受推崇的人以某种方式说话,那么这种说话方式就会获得社会青睐,而其他同样有用的说话方式就会被降为“次等”地位。不幸的是,语言时尚看似异想天开的变化往往会带来严重后果,说非标准变体的人往往会在课堂、工作场所、学校和社区中受到基于方言的歧视。法庭,以及别处。
The shifting fate of r in different varieties of English over time, as well as the fact that r-lessness is valued in standard British English but devalued in standard American, tells us that there is nothing inherently “better” or “worse” about pronouncing your r’s or not. Instead, it all depends on who speaks in what way: if the elite members of a society, or other people who are widely admired, speak a certain way, then that way of talking is what gains social favor, and other equally serviceable types of speech get relegated to “substandard” status. Unfortunately, the seemingly whimsical turns of linguistic fashion often have grave consequences, and people who speak nonstandard varieties are often subject to discrimination on the basis of dialect, in the classroom, workplace, courtroom, and elsewhere.
既然说非标准方言可能会带来负面影响,为什么我们仍然会听到这么多与我们认为的标准方言不同的语言呢?有些人认为答案在于缺乏接触标准方言的机会,也许是因为缺乏教育。其他人则不那么友善,他们认为人们说非标准方言是因为他们太“懒惰”或“不聪明”,无法学习说标准方言。我们已经看到,说任何方言都需要遵循其通常微妙的规则,因此懒惰或缺乏智力并不是答案。此外,许多受过良好教育的人至少有时会说非标准方言,我们甚至可以听到政治领袖在公开演讲中用地方口音讲话。
Given the potential negative consequences of speaking a nonstandard dialect, why do we continue to hear so much speech that differs from what we would consider to be standard? Some people feel that the answer lies in lack of exposure to the standard variety, perhaps through lack of education. Others are less kind and suggest that people speak nonstandard dialects because they are too “lazy” or “unintelligent” to learn to speak the standard. We have already seen that speaking any dialect requires following its often subtle rules, so laziness or lack of intelligence really cannot be the answer. Furthermore, many people with plenty of education speak nonstandard dialects, at least sometimes, and we can even hear political leaders speak with regional accents in their public speeches.
事实上,人们使用非标准方言有重要的社会原因。对许多人来说,非标准方言与家乡和当地社区息息相关,放弃方言实际上相当于背弃亲人。对其他人来说,非标准方言带有酷或强硬的含义,因此人们甚至可能会在自己的言语中添加非标准特征,尤其是在青少年时期,因为“融入”或“保持酷”尤为重要。许多人在某些情况下使用相对标准的方言,但在其他情况下会切换到更通俗的方言,或者在单一环境中切换以达到某种效果。同样,我们可能会想到一位政治家使用地方口音来给他们的话语增添“家乡”的感觉,传达“我是你们中的一员”的信息。
In truth, people use nonstandard dialects for important social reasons. For many, a nonstandard dialect is associated with home and their local neighborhood, and to abandon the dialect is practically equivalent to turning their back on their loved ones. For others, speaking nonstandardly carries connotations of coolness or toughness, so that people might even add nonstandard features to their speech, particularly in their teenage years, when it is especially important to “fit in” or “be cool.” And many people use relatively standard varieties in certain settings but switch into more vernacular dialects in other situations, or switch within a single setting to achieve a certain effect. Again, we might think of a politician who uses a regional accent to give a “down home” feel to their words, to convey the message “I’m one of you.”
我们甚至可以想到,不说某种非标准语言可能会给社会带来灾难性后果。例如,假设一位在加州圣费尔南多谷地区的高中非常受欢迎的白人少女突然停止使用与她的地区、年龄和社会群体相关的语言特征——即所谓“山谷女孩”的说话方式(比如使用like和all来引出引语,比如“我当时想,‘她在干什么?’”或“她一直说, ‘饶了我吧!’”)——相反,她开始更像她的上层中产阶级父母。我们可以想象,她的受欢迎程度可能会像她使用那些代表她独特的“in”的语言特征一样迅速下降。团体。
We can even think of occasions when not speaking a particular nonstandard variety might be socially disastrous. For example, suppose a White teenage girl who was very popular in her high school in the San Fernando Valley area of California suddenly stopped using the language features associated with her regional, age, and social group – that is, the features of so-called “Valley Girl” talk (such as the use of like and all to introduce quotes, as in “I was like, ‘What is she doing?’” or “She was all, ‘Give me a break!’”) – and instead began talking more like her upper-middle-class parents. We can imagine that her popularity might decline as rapidly as her use of the linguistic features that characterize her particular “in” group.
所有语言和语言变体,无论表面上看起来多么一致,本质上都是可变的。例如,无r方言的使用者不会绝对地省略r(即始终省略每个r)。这就等于说无r方言的音系中没有r ,但显然有。相反,它们的r发音是可变的;有时会省略。这种可变性不是随机或无计划的;它根据语言和社会因素以有规律的方式形成。表征语言和语言变体的规律模式通常是可变的,而不是绝对的。与分类规则一样,可变规则也显示出基于语言因素的规律模式。例如,某些西班牙语变体,如卡斯蒂利亚西班牙语,其特点是许多/s/音发音为 [ θ ],如hace frío ‘天气很冷’的发音为 [ha θ e f ɹ io]。但是,在这些方言中并非所有/s/音都这样发音,只有以c或z拼写的音才这样发音。因此,像vaso ‘玻璃’这样的词发音为 [vaso] 而不是 [va θ o]。我们甚至可以看到单个单词的变化,如gracias ‘谢谢’,发音为 [gra θ ias];第一个/s/音以c拼写,发音为 [ θ ],但第二个音以s拼写,发音为 [s](在某些西班牙语变体中,
有时发音为 [h] 或)。
All languages and language varieties, no matter how seemingly uniform, are inherently variable. For example, speakers of r-less dialects do not drop their r’s categorically (that is, every r all the time). This would be tantamount to saying that r-less dialects don’t have r in their phonology, but they clearly do. Rather, their pronunciation of r is variable; they drop it sometimes. This variability is not random or haphazard; it patterns in regular ways, according to linguistic and social factors. The regular patterns that characterize languages and language varieties are very often variable rather than categorical. As with categorical rules, variable rules also display regular patterns based on linguistic factors. For example, some varieties of Spanish, such as Castilian Spanish, are characterized by the pronunciation of many /s/ sounds as [θ], as in the pronunciation of hace frío ‘it’s cold’ as [haθe fɹio]. However, not all /s/ sounds are pronounced this way in these dialects, but only those spelled with c or z. Thus, a word like vaso ‘glass’ is pronounced as [vaso] rather than [vaθo]. We can see variability even in single words like gracias ‘thank you,’ pronounced [graθias]; the first /s/ sound, spelled with a c, is pronounced as [θ], but the second, spelled with an s, is pronounced as [s] (or sometimes [h] or , in some Spanish varieties).
语言变异也会根据社会阶层和性别等社会因素而有规律地形成。在许多社区中,社会阶层较低的群体(以收入、职业和教育程度衡量)的说话者比社会阶层较高的群体更频繁地使用非标准特征。此外,尽管也存在一些例外,但女性使用标准语音特征的频率往往高于男性。方言固有的多变性延伸到个人层面:每个人对方言特征的使用都会随着情境因素(例如场合的正式程度或交谈对象)和社会心理因素(例如他们是否想适应或疏远与他们在一起的人,或者他们希望投射什么样的形象)而波动。
Linguistic variability also patterns regularly according to social factors such as social class and gender. In many communities, speakers in lower-social-class groups (as measured by income, occupation, and education) use nonstandard features more frequently than people in higher-class groups. In addition, though there are a number of exceptions, women often use standard speech features more frequently than men. The inherent variability of dialects extends to the individual level: everyone’s use of dialect features fluctuates based on situational factors, such as the formality of the situation or who they’re talking to, as well as social-psychological factors, such as whether they want to accommodate to or disassociate from the people they’re with, or what type of image they wish to project.
威廉·拉波夫 (William Labov) 是研究方言变异模式的先驱之一。20 世纪 60 年代,拉波夫对纽约市下东区进行了一项社会语言学研究 (Labov 1966 )。他对数百名来自不同社会阶层、以英语为母语并在当地长大的居民进行了非正式的社会语言学访谈。然后,他研究了这些人中的一部分人使用纽约市方言的几种特征的频率。此外,他还设计了访谈,以便引出不同正式程度的言语,这样他就能研究不同风格的不同使用水平。他的分析揭示了根据社会阶层和风格形成的相当有规律的模式,如图 9.1和9.2所示。第一张图显示了一个声望特征的模式,r发音(与带有污名的r -lessness 相对);第二张图显示了带有污名的特征的模式:[ θ ] 的发音为 [t],如 [w ɪ t] “with” 或 [t ɪŋ ] “thing”。风格范围从非常不正式(风格 A:随意讲话)到非常正式(风格 D,孤立词列表)。最小对(风格 D′)被认为更加正式(和自我意识),因为它们涉及受访者阅读成对的单词,如source/sauce或guard/god ,这些单词在标准美式英语中只有一个发音不同,但在没有r的纽约市中可能听起来相同演讲。
One of the pioneering researchers in the patterned nature of dialect variability is William Labov. In the 1960s, Labov conducted a sociolinguistic study of the Lower East Side of New York City (Labov 1966). He conducted informal sociolinguistic interviews with hundreds of residents of different social-class groups who were native speakers of English and who grew up in the local area. He then examined how frequently a subset of these people used several features that are characteristic of the New York City dialect. In addition, he constructed his interview so that it would elicit speech of differing levels of formality, so he was able to examine differing usage levels in different styles as well. His analysis revealed quite regular patterns according to social class and style, as you can see in Figures 9.1 and 9.2. The first graph shows the patterning of a prestigious feature, r-pronunciation (vs. the stigmatized r-lessness); the second graph shows the patterning of a stigmatized feature: the pronunciation of [θ] as [t], as in [wɪt] ‘with’ or [tɪŋ] ‘thing.’ The styles range from very informal (style A: casual speech) to very formal (style D, lists of isolated words). Minimal pairs (style D′) are considered to be even more formal (and self-conscious), since they involve interviewees’ reading pairs of words, like source/sauce or guard/god, that differ by a single sound in standard American English but might sound the same in r-less New York City speech.
图 9.1表明,一般来说,社会经济阶层较低的人(SEC)使用声望特征的频率较低,而社会经济阶层逐渐上升的人使用声望特征的频率逐渐上升。同时,随着说话者从图表左侧不太自觉的说话风格转向右侧较自觉的说话风格,所有阶层群体使用声望特征的频率都更高。唯一例外是中下阶层(SEC 6-8)表现出的“交叉模式”,他们在两种最正式的风格(单词表风格(D)和最小对风格(D′))中使用声望发音的频率甚至比最高社会阶层群体(SEC 9)的说话者还要高。Labov 将这种交叉模式称为他认为,过度矫正是社会经济阶层中层群体的典型特征,这种特征是他们的地位意识和向上流动的欲望的体现。图 9.2表明,社会经济阶层较低的人比较高阶层的人更频繁地使用带有污名的特征,而且所有阶层的人在从随意、不自觉的讲话转向更加意识到自己是否在讲话的场合时,使用带有污名的特征的次数越来越少。 “正确。”
Figure 9.1 indicates that, in general, speakers in lower socioeconomic classes (SEC) use prestigious features less frequently, while those in progressively higher classes show progressively higher usage levels. At the same time, all class groups use the prestigious features more frequently as speakers move from the less self-conscious speech styles on the lefthand side of the graph to the more self-conscious styles on the right. The only exception to the regular patterns is the “crossover pattern” shown by the lower-middle class (SEC 6–8), who use the prestigious pronunciation more frequently than even speakers in the highest social class group (SEC 9) in the two most formal styles, word list style (D) and minimal pair style (D′). Labov refers to this crossover pattern as “hypercorrection” and attributes it to the status-consciousness and desire for upward mobility that he believes often characterizes groups in the middle of the socioeconomic hierarchy. Figure 9.2 indicates that speakers in lower socioeconomic classes use stigmatized features more frequently than those in higher classes and that speakers in all class groups use stigmatized features less and less as they move from casual, unselfconscious speech to situations in which they are more conscious of whether or not they are speaking “correctly.”
为了确定语言变异模式如何与语言和社会因素相关联,社会语言学家经常对感兴趣的社区进行社会语言学调查。他们对来自不同社会和年龄群体的个人进行社会语言学访谈,然后确定具有可变模式的语言特征。这些特征称为变量,必须至少有两种不同的产生方式,而不会改变它们出现的单词或短语的含义。变量的一个例子是r vs。r -lessness 在单词farm中,可以发音为 [farm] 或 [fa:m] 而含义不变。变量的每种不同产生方式称为变体。对于每个选定的变量,研究人员会记录数据中可能出现感兴趣的变体(例如r -lessness)的所有实例。例如, r只有出现在元音后时才能实现为 [ø](即不发音),如farm或fear中,但当它出现在单词开头或辅音后时则不能,如ring或bring中。对于可能出现变体的每一种情况(称为标记),研究人员会记录标记是如何产生的(例如r是否发音)、标记的语言环境(例如 r是在重读音节,如fear中,还是在非重读音节,如mother中),以及说出该标记的说话者的社会特征(例如非裔美国中产阶级女性)。统计每个说话者的结果,然后汇总社区内每个社会群体的结果,得出每个年龄、社会阶层、性别和种族群体中r缺失的百分比等信息。本章末尾的练习 9.4 让您自己尝试定量社会语言学方法,使用swiming等单词中以-ing结尾的可变发音( ing或in) 和步行。
In order to identify how patterns of language variation correlate with linguistic and social factors, sociolinguists often conduct sociolinguistic surveys of communities of interest. They conduct sociolinguistic interviews with individuals from different social and age groups and then identify linguistic features with variable patterning. These features, called variables, must have at least two different ways in which they can be produced with no change in the meaning of the word or phrase in which they occur. One example of a variable is r vs. r-lessness in a word like farm, which can be pronounced as [farm] or [fa:m] with no change in meaning. Each different production of a variable is called a variant. For each variable selected, researchers note all instances where the variant of interest (e.g. r-lessness) could have occurred in the data. For example, r can only be realized as [ø] (that is, not pronounced) when it occurs after a vowel, as in farm or fear, but not when it occurs at the beginning of a word or after a consonant, as in ring or bring. For each of the cases (called tokens) where the variant could occur, researchers note how the token was produced (e.g. whether the r was pronounced or not), the linguistic environment of the token (e.g. whether the r was in a stressed syllable, as in fear, or unstressed syllable, as in mother), and the social characteristics of the speaker who uttered the token (e.g. African American middle-class female). Results are totaled for each speaker and then pooled for each social group within the community, yielding information such as percentage of r-lessness in each age, social class, gender, and ethnic group. Exercise 9.4 at the end of the chapter lets you try the quantitative sociolinguistic method yourself, using the variable pronunciation (ing or in) of the -ing ending on words like swimming and walking.
乍一看,将语言划分为方言似乎相当简单。例如,英国英语、美国英语和澳大利亚英语都是英语的不同方言,而且英式英语、美式英语和澳大利亚英语之间存在一些广泛的差异,这似乎相当明显。西班牙使用的西班牙语和美洲使用的西班牙语有哪些方言。但是美国使用的英语的各种方言或美洲使用的西班牙语的众多方言又如何呢?一种语言有多少种方言,我们又该如何划分它们呢?这些问题的答案因多种因素而变得复杂。首先,我们想将方言划分得有多细。例如,我们是否想简单地讨论南美英语和北方英语,还是想讨论南部地区的区域亚方言,比如德玛瓦半岛、弗吉尼亚皮埃蒙特、北卡罗来纳州东北部和南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿使用的方言?同样,我们是否只对墨西哥西班牙语和波多黎各西班牙语之间的差异感兴趣,还是对墨西哥使用的不同西班牙语方言或墨西哥西班牙语与美国各地使用的墨西哥西班牙语之间更细微的差异感兴趣?其次,区域差异模式与基于社会阶层和性别等社会因素的差异模式相交叉,一些基于社会的方言可能超越地域。例如,非裔美国英语 (AAE) 在美国许多地区似乎相当统一,尽管这种连贯的语言变体中存在一些地区差异,并且根据社会阶层和言语情况存在很大差异。此外,正如我们上面提到的,方言在语言模式的各个层面上都存在差异,并且根据我们关注的特征类型,变体之间的分界线可能会有很大不同。
At first glance, it might seem fairly simple to divide languages into dialects. For example, it seems fairly clear that British English, American English, and Australian English are all separate dialects of English and that there are some broad differences between the varieties of Spanish spoken in Spain vs. those spoken in the Americas. But what about the various varieties of English spoken in the US or the many varieties of Spanish in the Americas? How many dialects of a given language are there, and how exactly do we draw our dividing lines? The answers to these questions are complicated by several factors. First, there is the issue of how finely we want to divide our dialects. For example, do we want to talk simply about Southern American English vs. Northern varieties, or do we want to talk about regional subvarieties within the south, such as those spoken in the Delmarva Peninsula, Virginia Piedmont, northeastern North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina? Similarly, are we interested simply in differences between, say, Mexican Spanish and Puerto Rican Spanish, or are we interested in more fine-grained differences between the different varieties of Spanish spoken in Mexico, or of Mexican Spanish as spoken in Mexico vs. various locations in the US? Second, patterns of regional variation intersect with patterns of variation based on social factors like social class and gender, and some socially based dialects may transcend region. For example, African American English (AAE) seems to be quite uniform across many regions of the US, even though there is some regional variation within this coherent language variety, as well as a great deal of variation according to social class and speech situation. In addition, as we have noted above, dialects differ from one another on all levels of language patterning, and dividing lines between varieties can look rather different depending on which types of feature we focus on.
方言之间最显著的差异可能就是不同方言变体中使用的词汇不同。例如,英式英语中的升降机在美式英语中称为电梯,卡车称为卡车,套头衫称为毛衣。同样,美洲西班牙语变体的使用者使用词汇carro “汽车”,jugo “果汁”和computadora “计算机”,而西班牙西班牙语使用者则分别使用coche、zumo和ordenador。这种词汇差异不仅存在于使用同一种语言的不同国家或大洲,也存在于同一大洲或国家内部。例如,在美国,碳酸非酒精饮料的名称(如soda、pop、coke、cola)因地区而异。在加勒比地区一些讲西班牙语的地区,使用者会将“公共汽车”说成guagua ,而在拉丁美洲其他地区则使用autobús或bus 。除了不同的术语用来指代同一事物之外,我们有时还会发现,在不同的方言中,一个术语可以用来指代不同的事物。例如,在讲低地德语的德国北部, “Mücke ”一词的意思是“蚊子”,而在奥地利部分地区,“Mücke”的意思是“蚋”或“家蝇”。同样,在中大西洋地区和美国南部的部分地区,“蚊子鹰”一词被用来指蜻蜓,而在美国其他地区(甚至在中大西洋地区的弗吉尼亚州的一些地方),蚊子鹰指的是蚊子,一种吃蚊子的大型蚊虫。西班牙语中的一个例子是tortilla,在拉丁美洲指的是面粉或玉米卷,但在西班牙指的是鸡蛋和洋葱煎蛋卷。
Perhaps the most noticeable differences between dialects are the different lexical items used in different varieties. For example, a lift in British English is called an elevator in American English, a lorry is called a truck, and a jumper is called a sweater. Similarly, speakers of Spanish varieties in the Americas use the lexical items carro ‘car,’ jugo ‘juice,’ and computadora ‘computer,’ while speakers of Spanish in Spain use coche, zumo, and ordenador, respectively. And such lexical variation is found not only across different countries or continents that share the same language but also within continents or countries. For example, in the US what a carbonated nonalcoholic beverage is called (e.g. soda, pop, coke, cola) varies across regions. And in some Spanish-speaking parts of the Caribbean, speakers say guagua for ‘bus,’ whereas autobús or bus are used elsewhere in Latin America. In addition to different terms being used to refer to the same items, we sometimes also find that a single term can be used to refer to different things in different dialects. For example, in northern Germany, where varieties of Low German are spoken, the word Mücke means ‘mosquito,’ while in parts of Austria, Mücke means ‘gnat’ or ‘housefly.’ Similarly, in parts of the Mid-Atlantic and southern US, the term mosquito hawk is used to refer to the dragonfly, while in other parts of the country (and even a few places in Virginia, in the Mid-Atlantic), mosquito hawk refers to the crane fly, a large mosquito-like insect that eats mosquitos. An example from Spanish is tortilla, which in Latin America refers to a flour or corn wrap but in Spain is an omelet with egg and onion.
最后,当不同群体的使用者谈论不同事物时,一种语言中的词汇也会出现差异,这通常是由于他们迁移到不同地区所致。例如,只有当英语使用者开始在北美定居时,他们才遇到花栗鼠、浣熊、猫鸟和响尾蛇等动物,因此在前两种情况下,他们从美洲土著语言中借用了这些术语,在后两种情况下,他们通过组合现有词汇来创造这些术语。同样,澳大利亚英语和新西兰英语中也有很多借用和发明的词汇,用于描述当地的植物群、动物群、地理特征、地名以及社会和文化概念。例如,在澳大利亚英语中,我们谈论诸如袋鼠和澳洲野狗之类的动物,以及被称为水潭(billabongs)的水体,而新西兰英语中从土著毛利语借用的词汇越来越多,例如kia ora “你好/再见”、Pakeha “非毛利裔新西兰人”和kohanga reo “语言巢穴”或为幼儿提供的完全沉浸式毛利语课程,这一术语反映了新西兰为振兴土著语言所做的持续努力(例如Melchers 和Shaw 2003:107-113)。
Finally, lexical variation within a language may result when different groups of speakers have different things to talk about, often as a result of migration to different locales. Thus, for example, it was only when English speakers began settling in North America that they encountered such animals as chipmunks, raccoons, catbirds, and rattlesnakes, and so borrowed the terms from native American languages in the case of the first two, and made up the terms by compounding existing lexical items in the second two instances. Similarly, Australian English and New Zealand English are rich with borrowed and invented lexical items for local flora, fauna, geographic features, place names, and social and cultural concepts. For example in Australian English, we speak of animals such as kangaroos and dingos, as well as bodies of water called billabongs, while New Zealand English is increasingly rich in words borrowed from the indigenous Maori language, for example kia ora ‘hello/goodbye,’ Pakeha ‘non-Maori New Zealander,’ and kohanga reo ‘language nest,’ or total immersion Maori language program for young children, a term that is reflective of continuing efforts to revitalize the indigenous language of New Zealand (e.g. Melchers and Shaw 2003: 107–113).
我们许多人都从个人经验中知道,方言之间的含义差异不仅仅是古怪的好奇心,因为它们常常是混淆或尴尬的根源。例如,一个澳大利亚英语使用者在美国杂货店要一辆手推车,她很可能会得到茫然的眼神,而不是她要的东西(购物车);而一个北卡罗来纳州或南卡罗来纳州的居民到英国旅游,天真地开始谈论他多么喜欢性交(他所在方言区的一种舞蹈),这可能会被认为是非常不礼貌的,因为他刚刚使用了英国俚语中表示性交的词语。更糟糕的是,当我们提到最常见的物品时,例如基本的服装,词语和含义之间的关系往往是最复杂的。简单说一下潜在的混淆:在美国称为汗衫的男士内衣,在英国是背心,在澳大利亚和新西兰是汗衫(而美国的背心在英国是马甲);男式(内)裤在英国(以及澳大利亚和新西兰)可能被简单地称为pants ,但在美国被称为shorts ,而女式内裤(美国)在英国被称为knickers ,在澳大利亚和新西兰被称为pants (Bauer 2002:43)。
As many of us know from personal experience, meaning differences between dialects can be more than quaint curiosities, since they are often a source of confusion or embarrassment. For example, a speaker of Australian English who asks for a trolley in an American grocery store is apt to be met with blank stares rather than directed to what she is requesting (a shopping cart), while a resident of North or South Carolina who travels to Britain and innocently begins talking about how much he enjoys shagging (a type of dancing in his dialect region), might be considered very impolite indeed, since he has just used a British slang term for sexual intercourse. To make matters worse, relationships between words and meanings are often most complicated when we’re referring to the most commonplace items, for example basic articles of clothing. To touch briefly on the potential confusion: the men’s undergarment known as an undershirt in the US is a vest in England and a singlet in Australia and New Zealand (while a vest in the US is a waistcoat in England); men’s (under)pants may be called simply pants in England (as well as Australia and New Zealand) but referred to as shorts in the US, while women’s panties (US) are called knickers in England and pants in Australia and New Zealand (Bauer 2002: 43).
方言词汇差异也可以成为身份认同,包括区域、社会、种族和民族身份认同。例如,纽约人或美国东北部的其他居民大多知道“shlep”一词的意思(借用自意第绪语,意为携带或拖拉),而宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡的居民则以他们独特的词汇为荣,例如将“rubberband ”替换为“gumband”。而在更大范围内,国家或官方语言政策通常规定不使用借用自其他语言的词汇,并鼓励为创新的词汇和概念创造类似母语的术语。例如,法语语言学院建议不要借用英语中的“software”和“email” ,而建议使用源自法语的“logiciel”和“courriel”。而在新西兰,鲜为人知的毛利语单词“rangapu ”原本意为“团体”或“公司”,现在被赋予了现代意义“伙伴关系”,而“rei irirangi ”一词,字面意思是“精神之声”,已被创造出来以表达意思是‘收音机’。
Dialect lexical differences can also be important markers of identity, including regional, social, ethnic, and national identity. For example, it is mostly New Yorkers or other residents of the northeastern US who know what the term shlep means (a borrowing from Yiddish, meaning to carry or lug), while residents of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pride themselves on their unique vocabulary items like gumband for rubberband. And on a larger scale, national or official language policies often prescribe the non-use of lexical items borrowed from other languages and encourage the innovation of native-like terms for innovative items and concepts. For example, the French Language Academy has recommended against such English borrowings as software and email in favor of French-derived logiciel and courriel, while in New Zealand, the little-known Maori word rangapu, with the original meaning of ‘group’ or ‘company,’ has been revitalized with the modern meaning ‘partnership,’ and the term rei irirangi, literally ‘spirit voice,’ has been coined to mean ‘radio.’
方言之间的差异不仅体现在词汇方面,还体现在发音系统或音系方面。例如,在大多数方言中,在美洲的西班牙语中,字母c和z发音为 [s] - 因此gracias “谢谢”发音为 [g ɾ asias] - 而在西班牙的大多数西班牙语方言中,c和z发音为 [ θ ],如gracias发音为 [g ɾ a θ ias] 。此外,在西班牙和美洲的一些西班牙语变体中(例如安达卢西亚西班牙语和加那利群岛西班牙语,以及中美洲和加勒比地区的大部分地区),音节末尾的 /s/ 通常发音为 [h],如 [g ɾ asiah],在这些变体的子集中甚至可能被删除,如 [在德国,北部使用的低地德语与南部使用的中上德语存在一些系统的发音差异。例如,das [das]“这”,Schiff [ ʃɪ f]“船”,以及machen [max ǝ n]“制造”等单词中的 /s/、/f/ 和 /x/ 在中上德语中发音为 [t]、[p] 和 [k],因此短语das Schiff klar machen “清理船”(即让船准备好出发)发音为“dat Schipp klar maken”(pc Barbara Soukup 和 Andrea Kleene,维也纳大学,2014 年)。
Dialects differ from one another not only in terms of lexical items but also in terms of their pronunciation systems, or phonology. For example, in most dialects of Spanish in the Americas, the letters c and z are pronounced as [s] – so gracias ‘thank you’ is pronounced [gɾasias] – while in most dialects of Spanish in Spain, c and z are pronounced as [θ], as in [gɾaθias] for gracias. In addition, in some varieties of Spanish in both Spain and the Americas (e.g. in Andalusian Spanish and Canary Islands Spanish, and in much of Central America and the Caribbean), syllable-final /s/ is often pronounced as [h], as in [gɾasiah], and it may even be deleted in a subset of these varieties, as in [grasia]. In Germany, there are a number of systematic pronunciation differences between Low German, spoken in the north of Germany, and Middle and Upper German, spoken in the more southern areas. For example, the sounds /s/, /f/, and /x/ in Middle and Upper German in words like das [das] ‘the,’ Schiff [ʃɪf] ‘ship,’ and machen [maxǝn] ‘make,’ are pronounced as [t], [p], and [k], respectively, in Low German, so that the phrase das Schiff klar machen ‘to clear the ship’ (i.e. to make the ship ready for departure) is pronounced as ‘dat Schipp klar maken’ (p.c. Barbara Soukup and Andrea Kleene, University of Vienna, 2014).
发音差异也有助于区分不同国家和不同国家的英语方言。正如我们上面提到的,美式英语和英式英语之间最显著的差异之一是 元音后单词位置上r的发音或不发音。但与此同时,在美国(例如波士顿地区和美国南部部分地区)和r发音在英国群岛(例如苏格兰)中最为常见。同样,澳大利亚英语和新西兰英语则主要以 r 发音为主。除了不带r的变体外,在新西兰南岛有一个受苏格兰英语影响很深的地区,这里的r发音有时像“burr”一样,让人想起苏格兰英语。随着英式英语从英国最早的海外殖民地北美、新西兰和澳大利亚传播到南亚和非洲,英格兰的不带r的发音也随之传播。一个显著的例外是印度英语,大多数使用者将r发成卷舌音(即舌头向后卷曲),这是美式英语的典型做法。然而,印度英语以其卷舌音(即 / ʈ /、/ ɖ /、/ ʂ /、/ ʐ /、/ ɭ /)和韵律特征(如音节时间(每个音节的持续时间相等)和相对较宽的音高范围)而闻名。
Pronunciation differences also serve to dintinguish dialects of English both across and within countries. As we noted above, one of the most noticeable differences between American English and British English is the pronunuciation or non-pronunciation of r in postvocalic word position. At the same time, though, there are pockets of r-lessness in the US (for example in the Boston area and parts of the American South) and areas of r-pronunciation in the British Isles (for example, Scotland). Similarly, whereas Australian English and New Zealand English are primarily r-less varieties, there is a heavily Scottish-influenced area in New Zealand’s South Island in which r may be pronounced, sometimes as something of a “burr” reminiscent of Scots English. As British English spread beyond England’s earliest overseas colonies in North America, New Zealand, and Australia to South Asia and Africa, so too did England’s r-less pronunciations. One notable exception is Indian English, most of whose speakers pronounce their r’s, sometimes as a retroflex (i.e. with the tongue curled back) as is typical of American English. However, Indian English is most noted for its retroflex alveolars (i.e. /ʈ/, /ɖ/, /ʂ/, /ʐ/, /ɭ/ and prosodic features such as syllable timing (in which each syllable is of equal duration) and a relatively wide pitch range.
元音发音在区分大方言和小方言方面也至关重要。英式英语和美式英语最显著的差异之一是,在标准英式英语中,将path、grass和laugh等单词中的 /ae/ 元音读作[a:]。这个特点对美国人来说非常明显,他们经常用它模仿英式英语。然而,他们经常用错,因为他们认为 /ae/ 在英式英语中绝对应该发音为 [a:],而实际上有些词读作 [ae],有些词读作 [a:]。而且这种模式也不是很能预测,所以对于没有接受过语言训练或口音指导的美国人而言,要准确模仿几乎是不可能的。即使在相同的音系环境中,也会有词汇上的差异。例如,英国的 [pa: θ ]、[gra:s] 和 [la:f] 与 [mæ θ s] maths、[mæs] mass和 [gæf] gaffe并存。
Vowel pronunciations are also of crucial importance in differentiating dialects, both large and small. One of the most noticeable differences between British and American English is the pronunciation of what to Americans is an /ae/ vowel in words like path, grass, and laugh as an [a:] in standard British English. This feature is very salient to Americans, who often use it in imitations of British English. However, they often use it wrongly, because they presume that /ae/ is categorically pronounced as [a:] in British English, when in reality some words have [ae] and others have [a:]. Nor is the patterning very neatly predictable, and so it is practically impossible for an American without linguistic training or accent coaching to give an accurate imitation. Even in the same phonological environments there are lexically based differences. For example, British [pa:θ], [gra:s], and [la:f] exist side by side with [mæθs] maths, [mæs] mass, and [gæf] gaffe.
尽管有时发音模式存在细微差异,但美式英语和英式英语通常相当容易区分,至少对于以英语为母语的人来说是如此。英语。但是,元音发音的差异也有助于区分相当相似的变体。例如,对于外行人来说,澳大利亚英语和新西兰英语听起来可能几乎一模一样;然而,一旦熟悉了几个元音差异,区分这两种方言就会变得容易得多(这也是一种让不懂语言的朋友惊叹的有趣方式)。区分新西兰英语和澳大利亚英语使用者的主要方法是看 / I / 元音的发音,例如在短语fish and chip中。在澳大利亚英语中,我们要么听到非常接近标准英式 fish and chip 的发音,要么听到稍微升高的 / I / 发音,例如接近feesh 和 cheeps 的发音。相比之下,新西兰人以将 / I / 元音放回到中元音区域而闻名,发出类似fush 和 chups 的发音(经常被澳大利亚人嘲笑)。新西兰人还以将 / ɛ / 发音得与 / I /非常接近而闻名,例如将dress发音为driss,尽管澳大利亚人的发音会近似于此。由于这两种方言非常接近,它们也有许多共同的发音特征,例如near和square等词中的双元音合并([ I - ə ] 和 [e- ə ]),因此,像hear/there和beer/bear这样的词对会变成押韵的。
Despite sometimes subtle patterns of pronunication difference, American English and British English are generally fairly easy to differentiate, at least for native speakers of English. However, differences in vowel pronunciations also serve to distinguish quite similar varieties. For example, to the untrained ear, Australian English and New Zealand English may sound practically alike; however, once one becomes familiar with just a couple of vowel differences, differentiating between the two dialects becomes much easier (as well as a fun way to amaze one’s nonlinguist friends). The chief way to tell a speaker of New Zealand English from an Australian is in the pronunciation of the /I/ vowel, as in a phrase like fish and chips. In Australian English, we will either hear something fairly close to standard British fish and chips or a bit of a raised /I/, as in something close to feesh and cheeps. In contrast, New Zealanders are known for backing the /I/ vowel into schwa territory, producing something like fush and chups (and often being mocked for it by Aussies). New Zealanders are also known for pronouncing /ɛ/ quite close to /I/, as in something like driss for dress, though Australians will approximate this pronunciation. And because the two dialects are quite closely related, they also share many pronunciation features, for example the merger of the diphthongs in words like near and square ([I-ə] and [e-ə]) so that words pairs like hear/there and beer/bear are turned into rhymes.
发音差异还可以做出更细致的区分,例如,美国不同方言之间的发音差异。图 9.3给出了基于发音差异的美国主要地区方言地图。该地图由Labov 及其宾夕法尼亚大学的研究同事基于电话调查讲方言的人来自全国各地。重点是城市地区(即人口超过 50,000 的城市),因为城市的方言变化往往比农村地区更快。
Pronunciation differences also serve to make even more fine-grained distinctions, for example, among different dialects in the US. A map of the major regional dialects of the US based on pronunciation differences is given in Figure 9.3. This map was compiled by Labov and his research associates at the University of Pennsylvania, based on telephone surveys with speakers from all over the country. The focus was on urban areas (i.e. cities with populations above 50,000), since dialect changes tend to be more advanced in cities than in rural areas.
本地图上的方言划分基于说话者对几个关键元音的发音,以及不同元音发音之间的关系。例如,内陆北部方言的特点是将 /æ/ 升为 [ ɛ ],因此bag之类的词听起来像beg,将 / ɑ / 前置到 /a/,因此Chicago之类的词听起来像 [ šǝ kago](甚至像 [ šǝ kægo])。南部方言的特点是经常将 /ay/ 双元音发音为长单元音,例如 [ta:m] 表示时间,以及将boot和boat之类的词中的 /u/ 和 /o/ 前置。美国其他大部分地区的特点是 / ɑ / 和 / ɔ /合并,导致caught和cot的发音都变成 [k ɑ t] ,但中大西洋地区等地区除外,那里的 / ɔ / 发音向 /o/ 方向上升。在中部地区,合并仍在进行中,不同城市(甚至不同单词对)的模式也不同。
The dialect divisions on this map are based on speakers’ pronunciations of several key vowel sounds, as well as relations among different vowel pronunciations. For example, the Inland North dialect is characterized by such features as the raising of /æ/ to [ɛ], so that a word like bag sounds something like beg, and the fronting of /ɑ/ toward /a/, so that a word like Chicago sounds like [šǝkago] (or even something like [šǝkægo]). The South is characterized by the frequent pronunciation of the /ay/ diphthong as a long monophthong, as in [ta:m] for time, as well as the fronting of /u/ and /o/ in words like boot and boat. Much of the rest of the US is characterized by the merger of /ɑ/ and /ɔ/, yielding pronunciations like [kɑt] for both caught and cot, with some exceptions such as the Mid-Atlantic, where /ɔ/ is raised toward /o/. In the Midland, the merger is still in progress, with different cities (and even different word pairs) showing different patterns.
您可以通过访问www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/找到有关 Labov 电话调查项目 (TELSUR) 的更多信息。您还可以通过访问 美国地区英语词典http://dare.wisc.edu/ ,导航到“音频样本”页面,点击页面顶部的链接下载音频片段(.mp3 格式)。国际英语方言档案网站http://web.ku.edu/~idea/上提供了世界各地各种英语方言的样本。
You can find more information on Labov’s telephone survey project (TELSUR) by going to www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/. You can also hear samples highlighting the phonological differences of various regional dialects of US English by going to the home page of the Dictionary of American Regional English at http://dare.wisc.edu/, navigating to the “Audio Samples” page, and downloading the audio clip (in.mp3 format) by clicking on the link at the top of the page. Samples of a wide variety of dialects of English throughout the world can be found on the website of the International Dialects of English Archive at http://web.ku.edu/~idea/.
几十年来,美国北部大片地区许多元音的发音一直在发生变化,这些地区包括新英格兰西部、纽约州北部、俄亥俄州、印第安纳州和伊利诺伊州的最北部,并蔓延到密歇根州和威斯康星州。这种变化尤其集中在较大的大都市地区,被称为北方城市元音推移。使用“推移”一词是因为变化的元音发音是相互联系的,语言学家称之为链式推移。链式推移是指某个元音的发音方式发生变化,导致某种语言或方言的元音库组织不平衡,元音空间的某个区域过于“拥挤”,和/或另一个区域有太多“空白”。通过随后移动其他元音来纠正这种不平衡,以再次平衡元音分布。例如,北方城市元音发音的变化是由 /æ/ 发音为较高的前元音引起的,如bag的 [b ɛ g] 。这一变化在元音空间的低前区域留下了空间。低后元音 / ɑ /,如芝加哥[ šǝ kago],正在向这个空间靠近,而中后元音 / ɔ / 正在向下移动到 / ɑ / 区域,导致单词caught /k ɔ t/ 的发音为 [k ɑ t]。下面给出了这种转变的图表。请注意,在该图中,“e”代表 / ɛ /,“oh”代表 / ɔ /,“o”代表 / ɑ /。(要听一些与北方城市元音转变相关的发音,请访问配套网站。)
For several decades, there has been an ongoing change in the pronunciations of a number of vowels in a large area of the northern US encompassing western New England; upstate New York; the extreme northern portions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; and spreading into Michigan and Wisconsin. The change is especially concentrated in larger metropolitan areas and is known as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. The term “shift” is used because the changing vowel pronunciations are tied to one another in what linguists call a chain shift. A chain shift occurs when a change in how one vowel is produced causes the organization of the vowel inventory of a language or dialect to become unbalanced, with too much “crowding” of one area of the vowel space and/or too much “empty space” in another. This imbalance is corrected by subsequent movement of other vowels in order to even out the vowel distribution once again. For example, the vowel pronunciation changes in the northern cities were triggered by the pronunciation of /æ/ as a higher, fronter vowel, as in [bɛg] for bag. This change left space in the low front area of vowel space. The low back vowel /ɑ/, as in Chicago [šǝkago], is moving close to this space, while the mid back vowel /ɔ/ is moving down into /ɑ/ territory, resulting in the pronunciation of a word like caught /kɔt/ as [kɑt]. A diagram of this shift is given below. Note that in this diagram ‘e’ stands for /ɛ/, ‘oh’ stands for /ɔ/, and ‘o’ stands for /ɑ/. (To hear some of the pronunciations associated with the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, go to the companion website.)
方言也可以区分在形态句法变化(即单词如何组合成句子)方面,英语和美国英语的使用者彼此不同。例如,美式英语使用者倾向于使用got形式作为get的过去分词,如She has got used to it中,而英国英语使用者倾向于使用got,如She has got used to it中。此外,have和got还存在其他差异,例如美式英语中的Do you have a match ? 与英式英语中的Have you got a match ? 。美国和英国的形态句法也存在地区差异。例如,在苏格兰和英格兰东北部,说话者可以使用might could或may can等结构(所谓的双重情态动词(英语: double modals),用于诸如“我可能可以做到”,其含义类似于“我相信我可以做到,但不太确定”。这一特点也出现在美国南部英语中,很可能反映了这样一个事实:许多早期美国南部的英语居民是苏格兰人或苏格兰-爱尔兰人。(苏格兰-爱尔兰人是 17 世纪初移民到北爱尔兰阿尔斯特的苏格兰人的后裔。)
Dialects can also be differentiated from one another in terms of morphosyntactic variation, how words are put together into sentences. For example, speakers of American English tend to use the form gotten as the past participle of get, as in She has gotten used to it, whereas British speakers tend to use got, as in She has got used to it. In addition, there are other differences involving have and got, as for example in American English Do you have a match? vs. British Have you got a match? There are also regional distinctions in morphosyntax within the US and Britain. For example, in Scotland and the Northeast of England, speakers can use constructions such as might could, or may can (so-called double modals), in sentences such as I might could do it, which means something like ‘I believe I could do it but am not quite sure.’ This feature is also found in Southern varieties of American English, most likely reflecting the fact that many of the early English-speaking residents of the Southern US were of Scots or Scots-Irish origin. (The Scots-Irish were descendants of Scots who emigrated to Ulster, Northern Ireland, at the beginning of the seventeenth century.)
澳大利亚英语和新西兰英语与标准英国英语有许多相同的语法特征,但也有一些独特的形态句法特征。例如,这两个变体都极其有效地使用了名词后缀 -ie和-o以及剪切,而且结合两种形态过程的形式也很常见,例如barbie “烧烤”,Aussie “澳大利亚人”,rellie “亲戚”,以及sammie “三明治”。同样,南亚英语和非洲英语的语法与英国英语非常相似,特别是在书面形式和受教育程度较高的人中,尽管我们确实看到了一些不同的特征,例如,印度英语中将进行时与静态动词一起使用(例如我知道),以及南非英语中使用非规范的主谓一致或不一致(例如你上学吗?,他喜欢读书[Bowerman 2004 : 956])。
Australian English and New Zealand English share many grammatical features with standard British English but do have some distinguishing morphosyntactic features. For example, both varieties make extremely productive use of the noun suffixes -ie and -o as well as clipping, and forms that combine both morphological processes are common, for example barbie ‘barbecue,’ Aussie ‘Australian,’ rellie ‘relative,’ and sammie ‘sandwich.’ Similarly, the grammars of South Asian and African Englishes look a lot like those of British English, especially in written form and among more educated speakers, though we do see some differentiating traits, for example, the use of the progressive with stative verbs in Indian English (e.g. I am knowing), and the use of non-normative subject–verb agreement, or no agreement, in South African Englishes (e.g. Does you go to school?, He like to read [Bowerman 2004: 956]).
其他语言中也存在着形态句法方言差异。例如,蒙特利尔法语与巴黎法语或“标准”法语的不同之处在于,蒙特利尔法语使用者有时 在标准法语中,复合时态中带être 的移动动词应与avoir 连用,如Hier, j' ai passé les voir “昨天我顺便来看望他们”,而不是标准法语Hier, je suis passé les voir (Sankoff and Thibault 1980 )。此外,在法国和加拿大的法语方言中,说话者通常不会在Je veux (que) tu sortes “我希望你离开”(字面意思是“我希望(你)离开”)等句子中使用 que “那”。 那里西班牙和拉丁美洲的西班牙语变体之间也存在一些形态句法差异。例如,西班牙的西班牙语使用者使用第二人称复数代词vosotros,其伴随动词有自己的一套词尾,而拉丁美洲的西班牙语使用者使用Ustedes,其动词有自己的词尾;因此,卡斯蒂利亚西班牙语使用者说 vosotros habláis “你(复数)说话”,而拉丁美洲西班牙语使用者说 Ustedes hablan 。此外,在拉丁美洲的大部分地区(例如阿根廷和中美洲部分地区),根本不使用第二人称单数代词tú ,而是使用较旧的形式vos(和不同的动词词尾),例如vos hablás “你说话”比你所说的要多。
Morphosyntactic dialect differences also abound in other languages as well. For example, Montreal French differs from Parisian or “standard” French in that its speakers sometimes use avoir with verbs of movement that take être in compound tenses in standard French, as in Hier, j’ai passé les voir ‘Yesterday I dropped by to see them,’ rather than standard French Hier, je suis passé les voir (Sankoff and Thibault 1980). In addition, in vernacular dialects of French in both France and Canada, speakers often do not use que ‘that’ in sentences such as Je veux (que) tu sortes ‘I want you to leave’ (literally, ‘I want (that) you leave’). There are also some morphosyntactic differences between varieties of Spanish spoken in Spain and those spoken in Latin America. For example, speakers of Spanish in Spain use the second-person plural pronoun vosotros, with its own set of endings on accompanying verbs, while those in Latin America use Ustedes, with its own verb endings; so a speaker of Castilian Spanish says vosotros habláis ‘you (pl.) talk’ while a speaker of Latin American Spanish says Ustedes hablan. Further, in much of Latin America (e.g. in Argentina and parts of Central America), the second-person singular pronoun tú is not used at all, with the older form vos (and different verbal endings) being used instead, as in vos hablás ‘you talk’ rather than tú hablas.
最后,方言不仅在词汇、发音和形态句法方面存在差异,而且在更广泛的语言使用惯例方面也存在差异——例如,在对话中应以直接还是间接的方式进行,或者在对话轮次之间是否应允许停顿,以及停顿应持续多长时间。因此,例如,说美国南部英语的人经常在开始对话之前进行“闲聊”,而说美国北方英语的人则倾向于更快地“切入正题”。此外,美国不同文化群体在对话轮次转换方面的惯例可能大不相同。例如,西南部说美国原住民英语方言的人往往允许在轮次之间有相对较长的停顿,而纽约市的美国犹太人不仅往往不会在轮次之间停顿,而且经常重叠彼此的轮次,以显示对话的参与度(Tannen [1984] 2005)。当习惯于不同语言习惯的人相互交流时,就会出现问题;一个人基于其所在地区或社会群体的习惯而形成的正常谈话风格,可能会被习惯于完全不同习惯的人误解为粗鲁或过度犹豫。与发音、句子结构和词汇项目之间的差异一样,重要的是要认识到方言之间的语用差异只是差异,而不是某种缺陷。
Finally, dialects can differ, not only in terms of lexical items, pronunciations, and morphosyntax, but also in conventions of language use at a broader level – for example, in terms of how direct or indirect one is expected to be in conversation, or whether one should allow pauses between conversational turns, as well as how long those pauses should be. Thus, for example, speakers of Southern varieties of American English often engage in “small talk” before getting down to the business of a conversation, while Northerners tend to get more quickly “to the point.” In addition, different cultural groups in the US may have quite different conventions for turn-taking in conversation. For example, speakers of Native American vernacular dialects of English in the Southwest tend to allow relatively long pauses between turns, while Jewish Americans in New York City not only tend to not pause between turns, but often even overlap each others’ turns as a way of showing conversational involvement (Tannen [1984] 2005). Problems can arise when people who are used to different conventions for language use interact with one another; one person’s normal conversational style, based on the conventions of his/her region or social group, might be misinterpreted as rude or excessively hesitant by someone who is used to quite different conventions. As with differences in pronunciation, sentence structure, and lexical items, it is important to recognize that pragmatic differences among dialects are just that – differences, and not deficiencies of some sort.
我们已经看到,方言在语言变异的各个层面上都可能存在差异;方言之间的分界线可能看起来大不相同,这取决于我们关注的层面。将语言划分为方言的另一个困难是,方言之间往往具有共同的特征。例如,在新英格兰和美国东南部的一些地区方言中,以及在标准英国英语和许多世界英语中,都存在r缺失的情况源自英国英语。同样,以a为前缀的语法规则,例如a-huntin' 和 a-fishin',不仅出现在阿巴拉契亚英语中,还出现在美国其他历史上孤立的地区,例如东南海岸的一些岛屿。
We have seen that dialects can differ from one another on all levels of language variation; dividing lines between dialects can look quite different depending on what level we focus on. A further difficulty in dividing languages into dialects is that features are often shared across dialects. For example, r-lessness is found in some regional dialects in New England and the southeastern US, as well as in standard British English and many world Englishes derived from British English. Similarly, a-prefixing, as in a-huntin’ and a-fishin’, can be found not only in Appalachian English but also in other historically isolated areas of the US such as some islands on the southeastern coast.
不同社会或种族的方言之间也可能存在一些共同的特征。例如,非裔美国英语 (AAE) 被认为是美国英语最独特的方言之一。然而,AAE 白话变体的使用者与南部白人白话方言的使用者有许多共同的特征,包括将 / θ / 发音为 [f],例如在birfday中表示生日,以及在be用作连系动词(系动词be )时使用不带be动词的句子,例如在They a nice group of people中,或助动词(助动词be),例如They gonna come over。事实证明,每种方言都是独一无二的,并不是因为每种方言都由其独特的特征组成,而是因为每种方言都以独特的方式结合了语言特征。换句话说,方言之间通常具有共同的特征,但没有两种方言是由完全相同的特征 集
Features may be shared across social or ethnic dialects as well. For example, African American English (AAE) is considered to be one of the most distinctive dialects of American English. However, speakers of vernacular varieties of AAE share many features with speakers of Southern White vernacular dialects, including the pronunciation of /θ/ as [f], as in birfday for birthday, and the use of sentences with no be verb when be functions as a linking verb (copula be), as in They a nice group of people, or helping verb (auxiliary be), as in They gonna come over. It turns out that each dialect is unique, not because each is composed solely of its own unique features, but because each dialect combines language features in a unique way. In other words, features are often shared among dialects, but no two dialects are composed of exactly the same set of features.
此外,方言之间的区别通常不在于某些特征的存在与否,而在于共同特征的不同使用水平或不同的使用模式。例如,在 AAE 的白话变体和南部白人白话变体中都可以发现r缺失;然而,在 AAE 白话变体中使用得更为广泛。此外,尽管 AAE 白话变体和南部白人白话变体的使用者都使用不带系词和助动词be的are形式的句子(例如They nice,They gonna visit us),但只有 AAE 白话变体的使用者广泛使用不带系词或助动词is形式的句子,例如He nice或She gonna come visit us。虽然不带系词的句子结构在英语中被认为是非标准的,但这种结构在许多语言中都是完全标准的,例如俄语。此外,与我们讨论过的其他语言特征一样,不使用系词和助动词be是可变的,而不是绝对的,并且这种可变性根据常规规则模式化。例如,在白话文中,系词或助动词be的不使用,在gonna和-ing动词之前(如He gonna come over、She running)比在名词短语之前(例如He a nice guy )更常见。
In addition, dialects are often differentiated from one another not so much by presence or absence of certain features but by different usage levels for shared features, or different patterns of usage. For example, r-lessness can be found in vernacular varieties of AAE and in Southern White vernacular dialects; however, it is used to a much greater extent in vernacular AAE. In addition, whereas speakers of both vernacular AAE and vernacular Southern White dialects use sentences without the are form of copula and auxiliary be (e.g. They nice, They gonna visit us), only speakers of vernacular varieties of AAE show widespread use of sentences without the is form of the copula or auxiliary, as in He nice or She gonna come visit us. Although the construction of sentences without a copula is considered nonstandard in English, such constructions are perfectly standard in a number of languages, such as Russian. In addition, as with other language features we have been discussing, nonuse of copula and auxiliary be is variable rather than categorical, and this variability patterns according to regular rules. For example, nonuse of copula or auxiliary be in vernacular AAE tends to be more common before gonna and -ing verbs (as in He gonna come over, She running) than before noun phrases (e.g. He a nice guy).
虽然许多方言特征在不同的方言中是共享的,但有些特征似乎是特定方言所独有的。例如,词汇gumband “rubberband” 似乎是匹兹堡方言所独有的。此外,尽管 AAE 与南部白方言有许多共同的特征,但它确实有一些独特的特征,例如使用done表示结果或未来/条件完成时,例如She be done had her baby表示She will have had her baby(Rickford 1999:6)。特定语言变体所独有的特征称为群体独有的特征,而那些可能在某个品种中普遍存在,但在其他品种中发现程度较低的特征是群体优先的。
Although many dialect features are shared across different dialects, there are some features that do seem to be unique to particular varieties. For example, the lexical item gumband ‘rubberband’ seems to be exclusive to Pittsburgh speech. In addition, despite its many shared features with Southern White varieties, AAE does have a few unique features, for example the use of done for resultatives or the future/conditional perfect, as in She be done had her baby for She will have had her baby (Rickford 1999: 6). Features that are unique to a particular language variety are called group-exclusive features, while those that may be prevalent in a certain variety but found to a lesser extent in others are group-preferential.
此外,尽管方言地图(如上图 9.3所示)可能表明方言之间存在明显的分界线,但实际上方言之间通常存在一些模糊的过渡区,我们可能会发现区域两侧方言的特征混合在一起,或者可能发现介于一种方言和另一种方言之间的特征。例如,美国东北部的使用者传统上使用“桶”这个词来指代一种容器,通常用于用来装水或其他液体,而南部地区则传统上使用“ bucket”这个词。在这两个地区之间(例如在中大西洋地区),存在很大的差异,一些说话者使用“pail”这个词,而另一些人使用桶。
Further, although dialect maps such as the one in Figure 9.3 above may suggest that there are sharp dividing lines between regional dialects, in reality there are usually somewhat fuzzy transition zones between dialects, where we might find a mixture of features from dialects on either side of the zone, or perhaps features intermediate between the features of one dialect and those of a neighboring one. For example, speakers in the northeastern US have traditionally used the word pail to refer to a container often used to carry water or other liquids, while those in the South have traditionally used the word bucket. In between the two areas (e.g. in the Mid-Atlantic region), there is a good deal of variability, with some speakers using the word pail and others using bucket.
最后,如上所述,区域差异与其他几种类型的差异相交叉,包括社会经济阶层、性别和种族差异。在下一节中,我们将研究各种类型的基于社会群体的差异,以及基于个人的差异或风格差异变化。
Finally, as noted above, regional variation intersects with several other types of variation, including variation by socioeconomic class, gender, and ethnicity. In the next section, we examine social-group-based variation of various types, as well as individually based variation, or stylistic variation.
尽管早期的方言变异研究往往侧重于地区变异,但研究人员早已认识到,特定地区内的人们可能因所属的社会阶层而使用不同的语言模式。(阶层成员传统上由职业、教育水平和收入等指标决定。)基于社会阶层的语言差异可能比地区变异具有更严重的社会影响。与较低社会阶层相关的方言变异可能受到严重污名化,其使用者可能受到鄙视和社会制裁(甚至在教育或就业机会方面受到歧视),而主要与地区相关的方言可能被简单地认为是“有趣”或“不寻常”,甚至可能是“古雅”和“迷人”。
Although early studies of dialect variation tended to focus on regional variation, researchers have long recognized that people within a given region may differ in the patterns of language they use depending on the social-class group to which they belong. (Class membership is traditionally determined by such measures as occupation, education level, and income.) Social-class-based language differences may have far graver social implications than regional variation. Varieties associated with lower social classes may be highly stigmatized and their speakers subject to scorn and social sanction (and even discriminated against in educational or employment opportunities), while dialects associated chiefly with region may be thought of simply as “interesting” or “unusual,” or perhaps even “quaint” and “charming.”
从 20 世纪下半叶开始,社会语言学家开始将研究重点转向基于社会阶层的变异。例如,在其关于纽约英语变异的开创性研究中,Labov ( 1966 ) 表明,许多方言特征根据说话者的社会阶层表现出规律性。如上所述,并在图 9.1和图9.2中显示,下层阶级群体的说话者在标准或声望特征(如fear或farm等单词中的r发音)方面表现出较低水平,而在白话或污名化特征(如r -lessness 或将 [ θ ]发音为t,如wit中的“with”)方面表现出较高水平。相反,上层社会群体的说话者更频繁地使用标准或声望特征,而较少使用非标准特征。
Beginning in the latter half of the twentieth century, sociolinguists began turning their focus to social-class-based variation. For example, in his pioneering study of variation in New York City English, Labov (1966) demonstrated that a number of dialect features showed regular patterns according to speakers’ social class. As discussed above and shown in Figures 9.1 and 9.2 above, speakers in lower-class groups showed lower levels for standard or prestige features such as r-pronunciation in words like fear or farm and higher levels for vernacular or stigmatized features such as r-lessness or the pronunciation of [θ] as t, as in wit for ‘with.’ Conversely, speakers in higher social-class groups used standard or prestige features more frequently and nonstandard features less frequently.
在其他英语国家的城市也发现了类似的社会阶层差异模式,例如密歇根州底特律(Shuy、Wolfram 和 Riley 1967;Wolfram 1969)、英格兰诺维奇(Trudgill 1974 )和苏格兰格拉斯哥(Macaulay 1976 )。在诺维奇,特鲁吉尔发现,在path、grass、after和社会阶层等单词中,元音的后发音和前发音之间存在规律性的相关性,工人阶级的发音前变体(即美式发音)比中产阶级的发音前变体多,而中产阶级则更多地发音 RP 后变体 [ ɑ :]。Macaulay 还发现,在几个发音特征上,属于社会低层群体的格拉斯哥说话者比社会高层群体的说话者产生更多的非标准变体,包括单词house中的 /au/ 发音更像 [u](例如house发音为hoos),以及在某些单词位置上 /t/ 发音为喉塞音,例如butter发音为 [b Λ ʔ r] , get发音为[g ɛʔ ] 。此外,其他语言中也发现了白话特征与标准特征的社会经济地位和使用水平差异,例如蒙特利尔的法语(Sankoff 和 Cedergren 1971、Sankoff 和 Vincent 1977)和巴拿马城的西班牙语(Cedergren 1973)。
Similar patterns of variation according to social class have also been found in other cities in the English-speaking world – for example in Detroit, Michigan (Shuy, Wolfram, and Riley 1967; Wolfram 1969); Norwich, England (Trudgill 1974); and Glasgow, Scotland (Macaulay 1976). In Norwich, Trudgill found a regular correlation between back vs. front pronunciations of the vowel in words like path, grass, and after and social class, with the working class producing more front variants (i.e. the American-sounding pronunciation) than the middle class, who produced more of the RP back variant, [ɑ:]. Macaulay also found that Glasgow speakers belonging to lower-social-class groups produced more nonstandard variants than those in higher social classes for several pronunciation features, including the pronunciation of /au/ in words like house as more of an [u] (as in something like hoos for house) and the pronunciation of /t/ in certain word positions as a glottal stop, as in [bΛʔr] for butter and [gɛʔ] for get. In addition, regular correlations between socioeconomic status and usage levels for vernacular vs. standard features have been found in other languages – in the French of Montreal (Sankoff and Cedergren 1971, Sankoff and Vincent 1977) and the Spanish of Panama City (Cedergren 1973).
在研究基于社会阶层的变化时,重要的是要认识到,确定社会阶层成员或甚至识别特定社会的相关阶层划分可能相当困难,特别是因为我们可能会发现不同社会阶层的阶层划分模式截然不同。对阿拉伯语世界语言变异的研究表明,教育似乎是阿拉伯语社区社会经济地位的最重要衡量标准(Al-Wer 1997),尽管西方世界的研究人员通常使用职业作为衡量地位的主要标准。此外,在阿拉伯语世界,我们不能简单地谈论非标准与标准语言特征,“标准”大致相当于“享有盛誉”。在阿拉伯语世界,真正享有盛誉的语言,即古典阿拉伯语,并没有被广泛使用;相反,上层阶级的使用者倾向于使用更现代的语言变体,这些变体正成为大片地区或大城市中心的交流标准(Al-Wer 1997,Haeri 1997)。
In studying social-class-based variation, it is important to realize that determining social-class membership or even identifying the relevant class divisions that characterize a given society may be quite difficult, especially since we may find quite different patterns of class division in different societies. Research on language variation in the Arabic-speaking world has shown that education seems to be the most important measure of socioeconomic status in Arabic-speaking communities (Al-Wer 1997), even though researchers in the western world often use occupation as a primary measure of status. Further, in the Arabic-speaking world, we cannot simply speak of nonstandard vs. standard language features, with “standard” being roughly equivalent to “prestigious.” In the Arabic-speaking world, the true prestige variety, Classical Arabic, is not widely spoken; instead, higher-class speakers tend to use more modern varieties that are coming to serve as standards of communication across large regional areas or in large urban centers (Al-Wer 1997, Haeri 1997).
此外,一个特定社会中的每个人都不一定都倾向于单一的共同标准语言。例如,在 20 世纪 80 年代中期,社会语言学家 约翰·里克福德 (John Rickford) ( 1986 ) 发现,圭亚那的 Cane Walk 村被严格划分为两个社会阶层,而不是像纽约市那样划分为多个阶层。这两个阶层分别是庄园阶层和无庄园阶层,庄园阶层在糖业庄园担任非技术工人,无庄园阶层担任工头、司机和熟练技工。每个阶层都倾向于完全不同的语言规范,庄园阶层几乎没有意愿遵循无庄园阶层偏爱的标准英语规范。
In addition, it is not always the case that everyone in a particular society orients toward a single common standard language. For example, in the mid 1980s, sociolinguist John Rickford (1986) found that the village of Cane Walk, Guyana, was sharply divided between two social-class groups rather than into a range of groups as in New York City. The two groups were the Estate Class, who worked on the sugar estates as unskilled laborers, and the Non-estate Class, who worked as foremen, drivers, and skilled tradesmen. Each group oriented to quite different language norms, with the Estate Class showing little inclination to conform to the standard English norms preferred by the Non-estate Class.
除了语言变异模式不同之外,不同的社会阶层似乎也在语言变化中扮演着不同的角色。我们可能倾向于认为语言变化始于上层阶级,并逐渐蔓延到下层阶级,因为社会地位较低的人可能希望模仿那些更有声望的人的说话方式(和其他行为)。事实上,一些变化确实以这种方式传播——尤其是涉及采用说话者非常有意识的声望特征的变化,比如纽约市的r发音。然而,研究表明,许多语言变化是在意识水平以下进行的,这些变化起源于社会地位较低的群体,尤其是那些处于连续体中下层的人(例如上层工人阶级、下层中产阶级)。拉波夫 (Labov) 和其他人认为,这些中下层群体之所以如此善于语言创新,是因为他们是所有阶层群体中流动性最强的,因此非常容易接受变化。
In addition to different patterns of language variation, different social-class groups also seem to play different roles in language change. We might be tempted to assume that language change begins in upper-class groups and gradually spreads into lower-class groups, since speakers of lower social standing might wish to emulate the speech patterns (and other behaviors) of those with more prestige. And indeed, some changes do spread this way – notably changes involving the adoption of a prestige feature of which speakers are quite consciously aware, like r-pronunciation in New York City. However, research has shown that many language changes operate below the level of conscious awareness, and these changes have their origins in lower social-class groups, especially those in the lower middle of the continuum (e.g. upper working class, lower middle class). Labov and others have suggested that these lower-middle groups may be so linguistically innovative because they are the most upwardly mobile of all class groups, hence very open to change.
其他研究人员则认为,人们是否愿意接受语言变化,与其是否属于某个社会群体本身没有关系,而是与人们的接触模式或社交网络有关。例如,在一项对北爱尔兰贝尔法斯特进行的开创性社会语言学研究中, Lesley Milroy 和 James Milroy 表明,变化和变化模式与说话者是否属于密集和多元化的社会网络有很好的相关性(例如 J. Milroy 和 L. Milroy 1978、 L. Milroy 1987)。密集的社会网络是指“每个人都认识其他人”,而多重网络是指人们以多种身份相互交流的网络,例如作为邻居、同事和朋友。特别是,米尔罗伊和米尔罗伊发现,属于密集、多重网络的人倾向于保持本地的方言特征,并抵制来自本地以外的语言创新。相反,那些社会关系松散的人对语言变化更为开放。米尔罗伊和米尔罗伊关于局部互动模式与语言变化之间关系的研究结果可能有助于阐明经常在社会阶层群体中发现的大规模语言变异和变化模式,因为(至少在西方社会)中下阶层的人通常比最高阶层和最低阶层的人拥有更松散的社会网络联系。此外,正如我们将在下一节中看到的那样,对局部接触模式的研究表明,特定社会群体(例如阶级群体和性别群体)倾向于语言创新与保守的一般倾向并不总是成立,有时特定社会群体(例如性别群体)的成员可能会表现出截然不同的语言变异模式和变化。不同的当地的情况。
Other researchers have suggested that it is not people’s membership in a particular social group per se that correlates most closely with their readiness or reluctance to adopt language change but rather people’s patterns of contact, or social networks. For example, in a groundbreaking sociolinguistic study of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Lesley Milroy and James Milroy showed that patterns of variation and change correlate quite well with whether or not speakers belonged to dense and multiplex social networks (e.g. J. Milroy and L. Milroy 1978, L. Milroy 1987). Dense social networks are those in which “everyone knows everyone else,” and multiplex networks are those in which people interact with one another in more than one capacity, for example as a neighbor, workmate, and friend. In particular, Milroy and Milroy found that people who belonged to dense, multiplex networks tended to maintain local, vernacular speech features and to resist linguistic innovations from outside the local area. Conversely, those with loose social ties were much more open to language change. Milroy and Milroy’s findings regarding the relationship between localized patterns of interaction and language change may help illuminate the large-scale patterns of language variation and change that are often found across social-class groups, since (in western society at least) people in the lower-middle classes typically have looser social network ties than those in the highest- and lowest-class groups. In addition, as we will see in the next section, studies of localized patterns of contact show us that general tendencies of particular social groups (e.g. class groups and gender groups) toward linguistic innovativeness vs. conservativeness do not always hold, and sometimes members of a particular social group such as a gender group may show quite different patterns of language variation and change in different local situations.
关于基于性别的语言变异模式的社会语言学研究揭示了一些相当普遍的模式。例如,来自英语世界各地的研究发现,对于稳定的语言特征 - 即目前没有发生变化的特征 - 女性往往比男性更标准。全球许多不同的标准英语中都发现了这一现象。例如,在所有的英语变体中,swimming 或 running 等单词的 -ing 结尾的发音为ing [ ɪŋ ]一直被认为是标准发音,而这个结尾的发音为[ ɪ n ] (例如swimming的swimmin')则被认为是非标准发音。早在 1950 年代后期,许多研究表明,无论是在美国新英格兰地区(Fischer 1958),英国诺维奇(Trudgill 1974),还是澳大利亚悉尼(Horvath 1985) ,女孩和女性往往比男孩和男性使用更高水平的-ing发音。
Sociolinguistic research on gender-based patterns of language variation has revealed a few fairly widespread patterns. For example, studies from all over the English-speaking world have found that, for stable language features – that is, features not currently undergoing change – women tend to be more standard than men. This has been found in a number of different standard Englishes around the world. For example, in all varieties of English, the pronunciation of the -ing ending on words like swimming or running as ing [ɪŋ] has long been considered to be standard, while the pronunciation of this ending as in [ɪn] (as in swimmin’ for swimming) is considered to be nonstandard. Numerous studies dating back as far as the late 1950s have shown that girls and women tend to use higher levels of the -ing pronunciation than boys and men, whether in the New England area of the US (Fischer 1958); Norwich, England (Trudgill 1974); or Sydney, Australia (Horvath 1985).
与此同时,在语言变化方面,女孩和妇女往往比男孩和男人更快地接受新特征——不仅在美国、加拿大和苏格兰等英语国家,而且在拉丁美洲、西班牙、香港和台湾等其他地区也是如此。例如,在一项影响美国内陆北部许多城市的系统性元音变化的早期研究中,拉尔夫·法索尔德 ( Ralph Fasold , 1968 ) 发现,在密歇根州底特律市,女性在将单词caught [k ɑ t] 和buying [b ɑ t] 中的 [ ɔ ] 发音改为[ ɑ ] 方面处于领先地位,同时,将bag和mad等单词中的 /æ/ 发音改为 [ ɛ ] 的情况也更为常见,例如将bag发音为 [b ɛ g] 。几十年后的 20 世纪 80 年代初,在底特律地区一所高中的青少年中,仍然可以看到女性在发音方面处于领先地位 ( Eckert 1988 , 1989 , 2000 )。在一个非常不同的语言社区,埃及开罗,Haeri ( 1994 ) 发现,女性在齿塞音的腭化方面不断上升,远远领先于男性(例如 [mamtyi] 或 [mamçi] 表示 /mamti/“我的母亲”),尽管这种腭化既不是女性的特征,也不是男性的特征。古典阿拉伯语也不是被认为是“标准”埃及阿拉伯语的特征。
At the same time, when it comes to language change, girls and women have often been found to adopt new features more quickly than boys and men – not only in English-speaking countries such as the US, Canada, and Scotland, but also in a range of other places such as Latin America, Spain, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. For example, in an early study of the systematic vowel changes affecting many cities in the inland northern US, Ralph Fasold (1968) found that women in one such city, Detroit, Michigan, were leading the change from [ɔ] to [ɑ] in words like caught [kɑt] and bought [bɑt], as well as the pronunciation of /æ/ in words like bag and mad as more of an [ɛ], as in [bɛg] for bag. The same female lead was still being observed decades later among teenagers in a Detroit-area high school in the early 1980s (Eckert 1988, 1989, 2000). In a very different speech community, Cairo, Egypt, Haeri (1994) found that women are far ahead of men in the ongoing rise in the palatalization of dental stops (as in [mamtyi] or [mamçi] for /mamti/ ‘my mother’), despite the fact that such palatalization is neither a feature of Classical Arabic nor a feature of what would be considered the “standard” variety of Egyptian Arabic.
乍一看,我们可能很容易对性别差异模式给出一个普遍的解释——也许这种解释根源于男女之间的生物学差异,或世界上许多社会对男女的不同文化期望。然而,普遍的解释最终还是不够充分,因为普遍模式实际上存在许多例外,而且根据说话者性别而产生的差异模式在不同的社区,甚至在同一个社区的不同人群中也可能存在很大差异。例如,在他关于纽约市英语的大规模研究中,Labov 发现,与其他社会阶层相比,中下阶层的女性和男性的言语差异更大。此外,他还发现不同言语风格存在不同的性别差异模式:在谨慎的言语中,女性使用的标准特征水平高于男性,这一点并不令人意外。然而,在随意的言语中,女性实际上比男性使用更多的非正式言语。
At first glance it might be tempting to offer a universal explanation for patterns of gender-based variation – perhaps an explanation rooted in the biological differences in men and women, or the different cultural expectations for men and women in many of the world’s societies. However, universal explanations end up falling short, since there are actually a number of exceptions to the widespread patterns, and patterns of variation according to speaker gender can be quite different in different communities, and even in different segments of the population within a single community. For example, in his large-scale study of New York City English, Labov found that there was more difference between women’s and men’s speech in the lower-middle-class groups than in other social classes. In addition, he found different patterns of gender-based variation in different speech styles: in careful speech, women used higher levels of standard features than men, as we might expect. In casual styles, however, women actually used more informal speech than men.
即使在规模小得多的人群中,不同的亚群也可能表现出不同的女性和男性语言使用模式。例如,在她对底特律地区一所高中的“运动员”和“倦怠者”进行深入的社会语言学研究中,佩内洛普·埃克特 (Penelope Eckert) 发现,并不是所有女孩都以相同的方式使用语言,也不是所有男孩都拥有相同的语言变体。不同组的女孩和男孩使用语言特征的方式不同。运动员型女孩注重学校和学校相关活动,计划上大学并离开底特律地区;而倦怠型女孩则注重当地城市机构和活动而非学校,计划毕业后留在底特律地区。对于某些语言变化,例如将[k ɑ t] caught中的 [ ɔ ] 改为[ ɑ ] ,两个组的女孩在创新发音的使用水平上都领先于男孩。然而,对于其他较新的变化,例如将[b ǝ t] bet中的 [ ɛ ] 改为 [ ǝ ] ,倦怠型女孩领先于倦怠型男孩,但运动员型女孩落后于运动员型男孩。
Even in much smaller populations, different subgroups may show different patterns of female–male language use. For example, in her in-depth sociolinguistic study of “jocks” and “burnouts” in a Detroit-area high school, Penelope Eckert found that all girls did not use language in the same way, nor did all boys share the same language variety. Different groups of girls and boys used language features differently. The jocks were those who oriented toward school and school-related activities, and planned to go on to college and to leave the Detroit area, while the burnouts were those oriented toward local urban institutions and activities rather than school and who planned to remain in the Detroit area after graduation. For certain language changes, for example the change from [ɔ] to [ɑ] in words like [kɑt] caught, girls in both groups led boys in their usage levels for the innovative pronunciations. However, for other, newer changes, for example the change from [ɛ] to [ǝ] in words like [bǝt] bet, burnout girls led burnout boys, but jock girls lagged behind jock boys.
事实证明,我们需要局部解释来解释有时高度局部化的性别语言差异模式。在运动员和职业倦怠者的案例中,职业倦怠女孩和男孩都与来自底特律市区的人有更多接触,而最新的语言变化集中在那里。运动员,尤其是运动员女孩,接触较少,而且更偏向郊区,因此不太容易采用与城市语言最相关的语言特征。此外,人们对运动员女孩和职业倦怠女孩的适当行为的期望也不同,运动员女孩被期望比职业倦怠者更“得体”,说话更标准女孩们。
It turns out that we need localized explanations to account for the sometimes highly localized patterning of gender-based language differences. In the case of the jocks and burnouts, both burnout girls and boys had more contact with people from urban Detroit, where the newest language changes were concentrated. Jocks, especially jock girls, had more limited contacts and a more suburban orientation and so were less quick to adopt the language features most associated with urban speech. In addition, there were different expectations for appropriate behavior for jock girls vs. burnout girls, with jock girls expected to be more “proper” and to speak more standardly than burnout girls.
另一个对我们所说的方言类型产生重大影响的社会特征是种族。值得注意的是,基于种族的变异模式与生物学无关:就像在日本由说日语的看护人抚养长大的法国血统的孩子会说日语而不是法语一样,在白人家庭和白人为主的社区长大的非裔美国人血统的孩子也会说白人而不是非裔美国人的方言。相反,由非裔美国英语 (AAE) 使用者抚养长大的白人孩子,周围都是说 AAE 的朋友会说 AAE 而不是白人方言。因此,与基于性别的变化模式类似,基于种族的语言差异是由于文化而非生物因素造成的,其中一些因素包括早期接触特定种族变体、后来与类似和不同变体的说话者接触的模式,以及社会对特定社会群体“适当”说话方式的期望。
Another social characteristic that can have a big impact on the type of dialect we speak is ethnicity. It is important to noted that ethnicity-based patterns of variation have nothing to do with biology: just as a child of French descent who is raised in Japan by Japanese-speaking caregivers will speak Japanese rather than French, so too a child of African American descent raised in a White family in a primarily White neighborhood will speak a White rather than African American variety as his/her native dialect. Conversely, a White child raised by speakers of African American English (AAE) and surrounded by AAE-speaking friends will speak AAE rather than a White dialect. Hence, similar to gender-based patterns of variation, ethnicity-based language differences are due to cultural rather than biological factors, some of which include early exposure to particular ethnic varieties, later patterns of contact with speakers of similar and different varieties, and societal expectations regarding “appropriate” ways of speaking for particular social groups.
研究得最透彻的种族变体是美国许多非裔美国人使用的变体,社会语言学家通常将其称为非裔美国人英语( AAE )。您可能还会听到以下术语黑人英语 或黑人英语。此外,一些研究非裔美国人文化和语言的研究人员使用“嘻哈语言”或“嘻哈民族语言”(HHNL)这个术语。虽然与嘻哈文化相关的语言在年轻的非裔美国人中广泛传播,但它并不完全等同于 AAE,因为 HHNL 被美国和世界各地的各种族裔的人使用(Alim 2004)。此外,AAE 的历史比嘻哈音乐要悠久得多,嘻哈音乐才出现了几十年。
The ethnic variety that has been most thoroughly studied is the variety spoken by many African Americans in the US, often referred to by sociolinguists as African American English (AAE). You may also hear the terms Ebonics or Black English. In addition, some researchers on African American culture and language use the term Hip-Hop Language or Hip-Hop Nation Language (HHNL). Although the language associated with hip-hop culture is widespread among young African Americans, it is not exactly equivalent to AAE, since HHNL is used by people of a range of ethnicities in the US and throughout the world (Alim 2004). In addition, AAE has a much longer history than hip-hop, which has been around only for several decades.
像所有其他语言变体一样,AAE 在语言组织的所有层面上都有各自的特色和使用模式:音系、形态句法和语用。该语言变体的早期发展大多发生在美国南部,因此它与南部白人变体有许多共同特色。但是,这些共同特色在 AAE 中的使用程度可能比白人变体大或小,或者它们的模式可能不同。例如,AAE 和南部白人方言都有一些音系特色,如没有r以及将 /ay/ 双元音发音为单元音,如 [na:n] nine和 [ ɹ a:d] ride。但是, AAE 中r的出现程度比南部白人变体要大。此外,南部白人变体中的 /ay/ 单元音化发生在浊辅音和清辅音之前,如 [ ɹ a: d] ride和 [ra:t] right;然而,在 AAE 中,/ay/ 的 [a:] 几乎仅出现在浊音之前,因此 AAE 使用者表示ride时会说 [ ɹ a:d] ,但表示right 时会说 [ ɹ a ɪ t] 。
Like all other language varieties, AAE has distinguishing features and patterns of usage on all levels of language organization: phonological, morphosyntactic, and pragmatic. Much of the early development of this language variety took place in the American South, and so it shares many features with Southern White varieties. However, these shared features may be used to a greater or lesser extent in AAE than in White varieties, or they may pattern in different ways. For example, AAE and Southern White dialects share phonological features like r-lessness and the pronunciation of the /ay/ diphthong as a monophthong, as in [na:n] nine and [ɹa:d] ride. However, r-lessness is found to a greater extent in AAE than Southern White varieties. In addition, /ay/ monophthongization in Southern White varieties occurs before both voiced and voiceless consonants, as in [ɹa:d] ride and [ra:t] right; in AAE, however, [a:] for /ay/ occurs almost solely before voiced sounds, so that speakers of AAE will say [ɹa:d] for ride but [ɹaɪt] for right.
AAE 的一些显著形态句法特征,特别是其更为白话的变体,包括诸如He nice或They running(前面讨论过)之类的结构,在表示习惯性或正在进行的动作的句子中使用不变形的be,例如He be late for school(意思是“他通常/总是迟到上学”),以及在常规现在时动词中对所有主语人称和数使用相同的动词形式,例如I go,you go,he go,we go,you all go,they go。在 AAE 的白话版本中,所有格可能偶尔通过将所有者与所有者物品并列来表示(例如John book ),尽管也经常使用- s结尾(例如John's book);并且复数可以用 - s结尾或仅通过上下文来表示(例如three cats,three cat)。同样,尽管白话 AAE 的一些形态句法特征与南方白人白话相同,但它们的使用方式往往不同。例如,如上所述,南方白人和黑人可能都不使用系动词和助动词be用于复数主语的句子(例如They nice,They gonna come over)。然而,大多数使用白话 AAE 的人在单数主语的句子中不使用系词和助动词be,例如She nice或He gonna fix dinner。
Some of the distinguishing morphosyntactic features of AAE, especially its more vernacular varieties, include constructions such as He nice or They running (discussed earlier), use of uninflected be in sentences indicating habitual or ongoing action, as in He be late for school (meaning ‘He is usually/always late for school’), and use of the same verb form for all subject persons and numbers with regular present-tense verbs, as in I go, you go, he go, we go, you all go, they go. In vernacular versions of AAE, possession may occasionally be indicated by juxtaposition of the possessor with the possessed item (e.g. John book), though often an -s ending is used as well (e.g. John’s book); and plurals may variably be indicated by an -s ending or by context alone (e.g. three cats, three cat). Again, although some of the morphosyntactic features of vernacular AAE are shared with Southern White vernaculars, they are often used differently. For example, as discussed above, both Southern Whites and Blacks may show nonuse of copula and auxiliary be in sentences with plural subjects (e.g. They nice, They gonna come over). However, it is mostly speakers of vernacular AAE who show nonuse of copula and auxiliary be in sentences with singular subjects, as in She nice or He gonna fix dinner.
与其他非标准语言变体相比,AAE 可能长期以来一直饱受争议。部分争议仅限于学术界。例如,社会语言学家长期以来一直在争论 AAE 的起源是早期被带到美国殖民地的英式英语方言,还是起源于克里奥尔语。克里奥尔语是一种在不同语言接触时产生的语言,这种接触通常是在权力不平等的情况下发生的。它由不同接触语言的特征以及似乎专门在接触情况下出现的特征组成——例如,词尾屈折的消失。就 AAE 而言,接触的语言主要是各种西非语言和美国南部使用的英语方言,那里有最多的奴隶。关于 AAE 起源的争论至今仍在继续。一些学者指出 AAE 和白人变体(包括英国变体)具有共同的特征,支持 AAE 的英语起源。另一些人指出 AAE 与世界上许多克里奥尔语之间存在相似之处,支持该变体的克里奥尔起源。AAE 的克里奥尔语特征包括不使用系词be(例如He nice)、对所有主语使用单一动词形式(例如I go、she go),以及减少词尾辅音群(例如las' night表示 'last night',Wes' End表示 'West End')。近年来,一些学者认为折衷观点实际上可能是最正确的,因为社会历史和近期语言学证据表明,美国不同的非裔美国人群体可能有着不同的历史,其中一些群体在早期历史中受到周围英国白话群体的影响比其他群体更大,并且大多数群体至少具有语言接触情况下的一些共同特征。
Perhaps more than any other nonstandard language variety, AAE has long been embroiled in controversy. Some of the controversy is confined to academic circles. For example, sociolinguists have long debated whether AAE has its origins in the early dialects of British English brought to the American colonies, or if it originated as a creole. A creole is a language arising from contact between different languages, often in situations of unequal power. It is composed of features from the different contact languages as well as features that seem to arise specifically in contact situations – for example, the loss of inflectional endings. In the case of AAE, the languages in contact would have been mainly various West African languages and the dialects of English spoken in the American South, where the largest populations of slaves existed. The debate over the origins of AAE still continues today. Some scholars point to shared features of AAE and White varieties (including British varieties) in support of the English origins of AAE. Others point to similarities between AAE and a number of the world’s creoles in support of the creole origins of the variety. Creole-like features of AAE include nonuse of copula be (e.g. He nice), use of a single verb form for all subjects (e.g. I go, she go), and reduction of word-final consonant clusters (e.g. las’ night for ‘last night,’ Wes’ End for ‘West End’). In recent years, some scholars have suggested that a compromise view may actually be the most correct, since sociohistorical and recent linguistic evidence suggests that different African American varieties in the US may have had different histories, with some being more strongly influenced early in their history by surrounding British vernacular varieties than others, and most being characterized by at least some features common in language contact situations.
为了练习识别 AAE 的音系和形态句法特征,请尝试配套网站上的“聆听基于民族的方言特征”练习。
To practice identifying the phonological and morphosyntactic features of AAE, try the exercise on “Listening for ethnicity-based dialect features” on the companion website.
围绕 AAE 的其他争议超出了学术界的范围,可能会对人们的生活产生深远的影响。特别是,AAE 长期以来在教育和其他机构环境中一直受到贬低,其使用者仍然经常受到歧视——表面上是基于语言,但在许多情况下实际上是基于种族。例如,学校教师通常不承认 AAE 等被认为是非标准的方言的系统性和良好形式,而说这些变体的儿童通常被认为智力较低甚至语言障碍。同样,与更标准的语言变体使用者相比,使用 AAE 方言变体的成年人可能更难获得他们有资格获得的工作。此外,尽管在美国基于种族或民族的住房歧视是非法的,但这种歧视确实存在。例如,社会语言学家约翰·鲍夫 (John Baugh) 能说几种不同的方言,包括 AAE 和标准英语,他设计了一项实验,在实验中,他使用 AAE 方言、西班牙英语和标准(即白人)英语打电话询问住房空置情况。(鲍夫用三种不同方言的询问可以在配套网站上听到。)可悲的是,鲍夫发现,当他使用 AAE 方言或西班牙英语时,他得到的负面回应比用标准英语说话时要多。尽管社会语言学家已经工作了几十年,并继续努力向公众传达他们关于方言规律的科学知识,这些事件表明,我们在消除方言歧视以及语言或语言歧视背后的种族偏见方面还有很长的路要走种类。
Other controversies surrounding AAE go beyond scholarly circles and can have a profound impact on people’s lives. In particular, AAE has long been disparaged in educational and other institutional settings, and its speakers are often still discriminated against – ostensibly on the basis of language, though in many cases really on the basis of race. For example, schoolteachers often do not recognize the systematicity and well-formedness of dialects, such as AAE, that are considered to be nonstandard, and children who speak these varieties are often regarded as less intelligent and even language-impaired. Similarly, adult speakers of vernacular varieties of AAE may be less likely to get jobs for which they are qualified than speakers of more standard language varieties. In addition, although housing discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity in the US is illegal, such discrimination does occur. For example, John Baugh, a sociolinguist who can speak in several different dialects, including AAE and standard English, designed an experiment in which he made phone calls inquiring about housing vacancies using vernacular AAE, Hispanic English, and standard (i.e. White) English. (Baugh’s inquiries in the three different dialects can be heard on the companion website.) Sadly, Baugh found that he got more negative responses when he used vernacular AAE or Hispanic English than when he spoke in standard English. Although sociolinguists have been working for decades and continue to work to convey their scientific knowledge about the regular patterning of dialects to the general public, such incidents illustrate that we still have quite a long way to go in eliminating dialect discrimination, as well as the racial prejudices that often underlie discrimination on the basis of language or language variety.
请访问配套网站,听取北卡罗来纳州海岸海德县一小群非裔美国人农村人口中基于年龄差异的英语样本,以及位于该州东南部的另一个北卡罗来纳州农村社区罗伯逊县的非裔美国人英语、伦比族印第安英语和白人英语样本。
Go to the companion website to hear samples of age-based variation in a small, rural population of African Americans in Hyde County, on the coast of North Carolina, and samples of African American English, Lumbee Indian English, and White English in another rural North Carolina community, Robeson County, located in the southeastern portion of the state.
社会语言学家也在努力更好地理解非裔美国英语的变异,以及美国和世界各地其他基于种族的语言变体的特征模式,例如美国的奇卡诺英语和美洲原住民英语变体、英国的英国克里奥尔英语和毛利英语在 新新西兰。
Sociolinguists are also working to gain a better understanding of variation within African American English, as well as the patterns that characterize other ethnicity-based language varieties in the US and throughout the world, including, for example, Chicano English and Native American varieties of English in the US; British Creole English in the UK; and Maori English in New Zealand.
我们已经看到,讲同一种语言的人说话方式会因他们来自哪里以及属于哪个社会群体而大不相同。此外,每个说话者说话方式也会因各种因素而各有不同。例如,纽约市的人们表现出了风格变化的规律,从随意的说话方式到他们被要求阅读包含他们可能不自在的声音的单词列表时所采用的正式风格(例如source或guard等单词中的/ ɹ / 音)。此外,人们可能会根据他们说话的对象或交谈对象而有很大的不同。例如,社会语言学家Allan Bell ( 1984 ) 研究了新西兰几位电台播音员的讲话,发现同样的播音员在为国家电台播报新闻时使用更多标准的英式英语,但在为地方社区电台播报新闻(通常使用相同的脚本)时使用更多新西兰英语的特点。同样,Nikolas Coupland ( 1980 ) 研究了一位旅行社助理在工作期间的讲话,发现她的讲话标准程度取决于她交谈的对象——同事、客户或其他旅行社的同行。除其他特征外,两位研究人员还研究了元音之间 /t/ 的发音(例如 butter、latest),即 RP 清音变体 [t] 与浊音或拍音变体,后者是美式英语的特色,但在英国和其他受英式英语影响的国家被认为是非标准或随意的。在这两种情况下,发音变化都与听众相关:在 Bell 的案例中,广播员在向当地听众广播时更多地使用非标准变体,而 Coupland 研究中的旅行助理在与朋友交谈时比在与客户或与她有严格工作关系的旅行社交谈时更多地使用浊音/拍音变体。
We have seen that people who speak a single language can speak quite differently from one another depending on where they’re from and which social groups they belong to. In addition, every individual speaker can speak in a range of different styles, based on a variety of factors. For example, people in New York City show regular patterns of stylistic variation ranging from casual speech to the formal style they adopt when asked to read lists of words containing sounds they might be self-conscious about (e.g. the /ɹ/ sound in words like source or guard). In addition, people may vary their speech quite a bit depending on who they’re addressing or conversing with. For example, sociolinguist Allan Bell (1984) studied the speech of several radio announcers in New Zealand and found that the same announcers used more standard British English when reading the news for a national station but used more features of New Zealand English when reading the news (often from the same script) for a local community station. Similarly, Nikolas Coupland (1980) studied the speech of an assistant in a travel agency during the course of her work day and found that she spoke more and less standardly depending on who she was speaking with – co-workers, clients, or fellow agents at other travel agencies. Among other features, both researchers investigated the pronunciation of /t/ between vowels (e.g. butter, latter) as the RP voiceless variant [t] vs. the voiced or flapped variant that characterizes American English but is considered nonstandard or casual in the UK and other British English-influenced countries. In both cases, pronunciation variation correlated with audience: in Bell’s case, the radio announcers used more of the nonstandard variant when broadcasting to local audiences, while the travel assistant in Coupland’s study used more of the voiced/flapped variant when talking with friends than with clients or travel agents with whom she had strictly a work relationship.
此外由于这些背景因素,人们可能会根据社会心理因素调整自己的说话风格,比如他们是想顺从还是脱离他们的对话伙伴或他们希望展现什么样的形象。例如,在与一位难缠的客户交谈时,Coupland 研究的旅行助理从相当标准的讲话转变为更通俗的讲话,以表明她希望表现得乐于助人和友好,而不是冷漠和专业。虽然一些风格转变可能相当短暂,但其他风格变化模式可能会逐渐成为个人或群体的普遍特征,因此我们可以谈论一个人的个人风格或群体风格,例如 Coupland 研究的运动员风格和倦怠风格埃克特 (Eckert) 风格,又称山谷女孩 (Valley Girl) 风格,曾与加利福尼亚州圣费尔南多谷地区的年轻女性和青少年联系在一起,随后在美国广泛传播。
In addition to these contextual factors, people may adjust their speech styles according to social-psychological factors like whether they wish to conform with or disassociate from their co-conversationalists or what type of image they wish to project. For example, during a conversation with a difficult client, the travel assistant that Coupland studied shifted from fairly standard to more vernacular speech in order to indicate that she wished to be helpful and friendly rather than aloof and professional. While some style shifts can be quite short-lived, other patterns of stylistic variation can come to characterize a person or a group in general, so we can speak of a person’s individual style or group styles like the jock and burnout styles studied by Eckert, or the Valley Girl style once associated with young women and teens in the San Fernando Valley area of California and subsequently spreading widely throughout the US.
一位在提高教育工作者和普通公众对方言变异规律性的认识方面发挥了重要作用的语言学家,就是北卡罗来纳州立大学英语语言学杰出教授沃尔特·沃尔夫勒姆。沃尔夫勒姆多年来一直在北卡罗来纳州立大学和其他几所美国大学以及华盛顿特区的应用语言学中心 ( www.cal.org ) 工作,为非语言学家开发和实施方言意识计划,包括一系列关于北卡罗来纳州英语变体的纪录片视频以及针对小学生和中学生的语言变异课程。(要了解有关沃尔夫勒姆及其同事的各种方言意识计划和材料的更多信息,请访问北卡罗来纳州立大学北卡罗来纳语言生活项目的网站 www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/ncllp/index.php。)
One linguist who has played a prominent role in increasing awareness of the regularly patterned nature of dialect variation among educators and the general public is Walt Wolfram, Distinguished Professor of English Linguistics at North Carolina State University. Wolfram has worked for many years, at NCSU and several other US universities, as well as the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC (www.cal.org), to develop and implement dialect awareness programs for nonlinguists, including a series of documentary videos on varieties of English in North Carolina as well as curricula on language variation for elementary and middle-school children. (To learn more about Wolfram and his colleagues’ various dialect awareness programs and materials, visit the website of the North Carolina Language at Life Project at North Carolina State University at www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/ncllp/index.php.)
在除了地理和社会空间的变化外,语言还随时间而变化,或称语言变化。语言变化与任何特定时刻的变化密切相关,因为变化不是突然发生的,而是源于变化的时期。例如,英国上流社会的人并不是在 18 世纪的某一天决定停止在元音后发r 音。相反,从从发音 r 到不发音r是一个渐进的过程,事实上从未完全传播到不列颠群岛的所有地区,而且我们仍然可以在距伦敦最远的地区 发现大量带有r音的言语,包括爱尔兰、苏格兰和英格兰西南部。
In addition to variation across geographic and social space, languages also show variation over time, or language change. Language change is intimately connected to variation at any given moment in time, since changes do not take place suddenly but rather have their roots in a period of variation. For example, people in upper-class British society did not decide one day in the eighteenth century to stop pronouncing their r’s after vowels. Rather, the change from r-pronunciation to r-lessness was gradual and in fact never fully spread to all areas of the British Isles, and we still find lots of r-ful speech in the areas farthest removed from London, including Ireland, Scotland, and southwest England.
最重要的发现之一社会语言学的一个新特点是,除了研究语言变化已经发生之外,我们还可以观察语言变化的过程,即通过观察特定社区中某一特定时刻不同年龄段的说话者的变化模式。Labov ( 1963 ) 是第一批将年龄变异与变化联系起来的研究人员之一,他开创性地研究了马萨葡萄园岛(马萨诸塞州沿海的一个岛屿)的方言变异。Labov 主要关注的是sight和south等单词中 /ay/ 和 /aw/ 双元音的发音。他观察到,不同社会群体在岛屿的人们或多或少倾向于使用这些元音的抬高、集中发音,例如 [ ǝɪ ] 和 [ ǝʊ ] 分别代替 [a ɪ ] 和 [a ʊ ]。此外,拉波夫还发现,年轻使用者比年长使用者更倾向于使用这些集中发音,尽管集中发音在历史上实际上比 [a ɪ ]和 [a ʊ ] 变体更古老。通过将他的发现与玛莎葡萄园地区的旧语音记录进行比较,拉波夫能够确定,岛屿社区正在从 [a ɪ ] 和 [a ʊ ] 转变为传统的 [ ǝɪ ] 和 [ ǝʊ ] 发音。此外,他还发现较新的“复古”发音集中在农村渔民和其他非常重视传统岛屿生活方式的人群中。他推断,创新的发音带有岛民的含义说话者使用更高的层次来表达这些特征,作为对不断涌入的外来者的一种抵抗,而外来者的存在开始在马撒葡萄园岛显现出来。20 世纪 60 年代初。
One of the most important findings of sociolinguistics is that, in addition to studying language changes after they have happened, we can actually observe language change in progress, by looking at patterns of variation in a cross-section of speakers of different ages in a given community at a single moment in time. Labov (1963) was one of the first researchers to make the connection between age-based variation and change, in a groundbreaking study of dialect variation in Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts. Labov focused mostly on the pronunciation of the /ay/ and /aw/ diphthongs in words like sight and south, respectively. He observed that different social groups on the island showed a greater or lesser tendency to use a raised, central pronunciation of these vowels, as in [ǝɪ] and [ǝʊ] instead of [aɪ] and [aʊ], respectively. In addition, Labov found that younger speakers tended to use these centralized pronunciations more frequently than older speakers, even though the centralized pronunciations are actually historically older than the [aɪ] and [aʊ] variants. Through comparing his findings with older records of speech in the Martha’s Vineyard area, Labov was able to determine that a change from [aɪ] and [aʊ] back to the traditional [ǝɪ] and [ǝʊ] pronunciations was underway in the island community. In addition, he found that the newer “retro” pronunciations were concentrated among rural fishermen and others who strongly valued the traditional island way of life. He inferred that the innovative pronunciations carried connotations of islander identity and that speakers were using higher levels for these features as a sort of resistance to the growing influx of outsiders whose presence was beginning to be felt on Martha’s Vineyard in the early 1960s.
随后几十年,研究人员在世界各地的众多社区中继续发现类似的基于年龄的变化模式,这强烈表明语言正在发生变化。当然,任何基于特定时刻的变化模式(所谓的表观时间数据)得出的结论都应与实时数据——即来自同一社区的早期研究或后续研究的数据,这些研究测试了明显的变化是否随着时间的推移而持续。此外,研究人员需要注意,他们发现的不同代说话者使用模式不同,并不是说话者随着年龄的增长会“长大”而出现的暂时变化,这被称为年龄分级特征。如果研究对象是青少年和更年轻的说话者,这一点尤其重要,因为青少年通常会采用与成年人非常不同的说话模式(例如,大量使用俚语),但随着年龄的增长和开始进入劳动力市场,他们会更接近成人的语言规范。考虑到这些注意事项,表观时间法已被证明是一种非常有指导意义的研究语言变化的方法,不仅包括已经发生和正在进行的变化,还包括语言如何在不同年龄组、社会群体和社区中发展。 群组和风格。
Researchers in subsequent decades and in a multitude of communities throughout the world have continued to find similar patterns of age-based variation that are strongly indicative of language change in progress. Of course, any conclusions based on the patterning of variation at a given moment in time (so called apparent-time data) should always be checked against real-time data – that is, data from earlier studies of the same community or follow-up studies that test whether apparent changes have actually been sustained over time. In addition, investigators need to be careful that the different usage patterns they find in different generations of speakers are not temporary changes that speakers will “grow out of” as they advance in age, called age-graded features. This is particularly important if teenagers and younger speakers are included in the study, since teenagers often adopt very different speech patterns from adults (for example, the heavy use of slang) but conform more closely to adult language norms as they get older and begin to enter the workforce. Bearing in mind these cautions, the apparent-time method has proven to be a very instructive way of studying language change, including not only what changes have taken place and are currently underway but also how language changes progress through communities across different age groups, social groups, and styles.
那么,我们在美国和世界各地发现的各种语言变体究竟发生了哪些类型的变化?是不是因为日益增多的相互交流和大众媒体的影响力正在消除方言差异,而方言(甚至语言)多样性注定要灭亡?令人惊讶的是,研究表明,虽然小社区中一些高度本地化的变体确实正在消亡,但较大的区域性变体实际上在某些地区变得越来越不同,而在其他地区则正在重新出现。例如,在美国,北部和南部地区的元音发音差异越来越大。近几十年来,美国西部出现了区域和社会变体,这已经长期以来,英格兰的语言一直比东部地区更加统一。在英格兰,一些较老的、地方性的方言特征正在让位于,但这并不是长期被接受的标准英式英语特征,而是较新的特征,甚至是以前的“非标准”特征。例如,一些以前“下层阶级”的发音已在英格兰东南部广泛传播,我们现在通常可以听到这样的发音:将 thing 发音为fing ([f ɪŋ ]) ,将brother发音为bruvvuh ([br ə v ə ]) ,以及将bottle发音为bo'l ([ba ʔ l]) 。此外,英格兰东北部似乎也出现了一种新的超地方方言(例如 Watt and Milroy 1999、Watt 2002)。
So what types of changes actually are taking place in the various language varieties we find in the US and throughout the world? And is it the case that increasing intercommunication and the increasing influence of the mass media are leveling out dialect differences, and that dialect (and perhaps even language) diversity is destined to doom? Surprisingly, research indicates that while indeed some highly localized varieties in small communities are dying out, larger regional varieties are actually becoming more different from one another in some areas and being created anew in others. In the US, for example, there is increasing differentiation in the vowel pronunciations of northern and southern regions. In recent decades, regional and social varieties have arisen in the western US, which has long been more linguistically uniform than the eastern portion of the country. In England, some older, localized dialect features are giving way, not to long-accepted features of standard British English but to newer features and even formerly “nonstandard” features. For example, some formerly “lower-class” pronunciations have spread widely in southeastern England, where we may now commonly hear such pronunciations as fing ([fɪŋ]) for thing, bruvvuh ([brəvə]) for brother, and bo’l ([baʔl]) for bottle. In addition, a new supra-local dialect seems to be arising in northeastern England as well (e.g. Watt and Milroy 1999, Watt 2002).
尽管英语可能正在成为一种全球性语言,但随着英语的普及,世界各地使用的英语变体的数量也在增加。我们已经看到许多语言差异的例子,这些差异将长期存在的英语主要方言区分开来:英国英语、美国英语(包括美国英语和加拿大英语)、澳大利亚英语和新西兰英语。在中国、日本、沙特阿拉伯和津巴布韦等国家,人们作为第二语言使用英语的变体也有很多。而且,与所有方言一样,不同的世界英语已经确立,它们都是成熟的语言变体,在各个层面的语言变体上都有规律地呈现。因此,尽管全球化和大众传播的覆盖范围越来越广,但方言变体似乎仍将持续存在,甚至可能得到加强。因为,正如拉波夫在半个多世纪前发现的玛莎葡萄园岛一样,方言仍然是重要的象征当地的身份,世界各地的人们似乎都决心维护自己独特的身份,特别是当外部力量威胁到破坏它。
Although English may be becoming a global language, as the popularity of English grows, so too do the number of varieties of English spoken throughout the world. We have seen a number of examples of linguistic differences that separate the long-established major dialects of English: British English, American English (which encompasses US English and Canadian English), Australian English, and New Zealand English. There are also a host of varieties of English spoken by people as a second language in countries such as China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe. And, as with all dialects, the different world Englishes that become established are fully fledged language varieties with regular patterning on all levels of language variation. It seems likely, then, that despite the increasing reach of globalization and mass communication, dialect variation will persist and perhaps even strengthen. For, just as Labov found for Martha’s Vineyard over half a century ago, dialects continue to serve as important symbols of local identity, and people everywhere seem determined to assert their unique identity, especially when outside forces threaten to undermine it.
马里兰州切萨皮克湾史密斯岛的方言很有趣,不仅因为它与周围的方言和标准美式英语截然不同,还因为它正在迅速消亡——而且消亡的方式非常不寻常。由于通过小规模的海上职业谋生越来越困难,岛上人口正在迅速减少,居民被迫到大陆寻找工作。此外,该岛的陆地面积正在减少,实际上可能正在沉入切萨皮克湾。一些估计表明,史密斯岛可能只能再适宜居住 50 到 100 年。与世界上许多以前偏远的地方一样,岛民与大陆人的接触越来越多。例如,近几十年来,有线电视和互联网已经进入该岛,并且每天都有学校船只前往大陆高中。 (岛上没有高中。在每日校船服务出现之前,想要上高中的岛上青少年必须寄宿在大陆家庭,只有周末才回家。)这些变化可能会让人认为这种不寻常的方言将会衰落。
The dialect of Smith Island in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay is interesting, not only because it is very distinct from surrounding dialects and from standard American English, but because it is rapidly dying out – and in a very unusual way. Due to the increasing difficulty of making a living via small-scale maritime occupations, the island is rapidly losing population, as residents are forced to seek jobs on the mainland. In addition, the island is losing land mass and may in fact be sinking into the Chesapeake Bay. Some estimates suggest that Smith Island may be habitable for only 50 to 100 more years. Like many of the world’s formerly remote locations, islanders are coming into ever-increasing contact with mainlanders. For example, in recent decades cable television and the internet have come to the island, and a daily school boat service to the mainland high school was implemented. (There is no high school on the island. Before the advent of the daily school boat service, island teens who wanted to attend high school had to board with mainland families, coming home only on weekends.) These changes might lead one to think that the unusual dialect would be on the decline.
然而有趣的是,史密斯岛英语实际上似乎越来越不同于周围的语言,尽管它失去了使用者——社会语言学家称之为“方言集中”的现象。方言集中与语言和方言消亡的更常见方式形成对比——被称为“消散”。消散是指用更普遍的特征取代显着特征。研究人员发现,许多显着特征史密斯岛英语的音系和形态句法特征正在增多。正在集中的音系特征包括将right和time等词中的 /ay/ 双元音发音得更像 [ ǝɪ ](类似于马莎葡萄园岛的 /ay/ 音),将south或down等词中的 /aw/ 双元音发音得更像 [ ɛɪ ](发音更靠近口腔前部),因此down听起来几乎像Dane。正在增多的形态句法特征包括用it来表示存在,而标准英语会用there 来表示,例如在It was three men outside中表示“外面有三个人”,并且将were't用作所有过去式 be 的否定语境中的be ,例如It wasn't me或I wasn't there(除了标准的You wasn't there和They wasn't home之外)。
Interestingly, though, Smith Island English actually seems to be becoming more rather than less distinctive from surrounding varieties, even as it loses speakers – a phenomenon sociolinguists call “dialect concentration.” Dialect concentration contrasts with the more usual way in which languages and dialects die – called “dissipation.” Dissipation refers to the replacement of distinguishing features with more widespread ones. Researchers have found that a number of distinguishing phonological and morphosyntactic features are on the rise in Smith Island English. The phonological features undergoing concentration include the pronunciation of the /ay/ diphthong in words like right and time as more of an [ǝɪ] (similar to the Martha’s Vineyard /ay/ sound), and the pronunciation of the /aw/ diphthong in words like south or down as more of an [ɛɪ] (pronounced more toward the front of the mouth), so that down sounds almost like Dane. Morphosyntactic features on the rise include the use of it to indicate existence where standard English would use there, as in It was three men outside for ‘There were three men outside,’ and the use of weren’t for all forms of past be in negative contexts, as in It weren’t me or I weren’t there (in addition to standard You weren’t there, They weren’t home).
岛上的方言以不同寻常的方式走向消亡,似乎有几个因素可以解释。也许最重要的是岛民强烈的社区认同感和与外来者的个人独特性。特别是对于那些尽管困难重重但仍选择留在岛上的人来说,保留甚至发扬他们独特的方言似乎是岛民对抗威胁他们珍视的生活方式的潮流(无论是社会经济潮流还是文字潮流)的一种方式。
Several factors seem to account for the unusual way in which the island variety is moving toward death. Perhaps the most important is islanders’ strong sense of community identity and personal distinctiveness from outsiders. Especially for those who choose to remain on the island despite the increasing difficulties, preserving and even heightening their unique dialect seems to be one way in which islanders can fight the tides, both socioeconomic and literal, that threaten to bring an end to their cherished way of life.
要了解史密斯岛方言在过去几代人中是如何加强的,请访问配套网站,听听对老年、中年和年轻说话者的采访摘录。要将这种强化与方言消亡进行比较,请访问配套网站,听听来自不同世代的三位说话者 奥克拉科克岛位于北卡罗来纳州外滩群岛。与史密斯岛相比,奥克拉科克岛在过去几十年经历了人口的快速增长,游客和新居民蜂拥而至,人数不断增加数字。
To hear how the Smith Island dialect has intensified over the past several generations, go to the companion website and listen to excerpts from interviews with old, middle-aged, and younger speakers. To compare this intensification with dialect dissipation, go to the companion website and listen to three speakers of different generations from Ocracoke Island, located in the Outer Banks chain of islands off the coast of North Carolina. In contrast to Smith Island, Ocracoke has experienced rapid population growth over the past several decades, as tourists and new residents flock to the island in ever-increasing numbers.
在本章中,我们探讨了方言变异的性质,即单一语言中的变异。我们已经看到,方言变异不是随机或偶然的,而是根据语言因素和社会因素(例如,地区、社会阶层、社交网络、种族、年龄)有规律地形成的。方言在语言的所有层面上都表现出规律的变化模式,从单个声音的发音到整个对话的模式。此外,个别说话者会根据诸如讲话场合的正式程度、他们正在与谁交谈以及他们希望展现什么样的形象等因素表现出风格上的变化。方言变异与语言变化密切相关,因为变化不是突然发生的,而是从新旧特征之间的变化开始的。通过观察一个社区中不同年龄段的说话者在某一时刻的讲话,甚至可以看到语言变化的进程。最后,我们看到,尽管世界人民之间的交流日益频繁,英语作为世界语言的传播也日益广泛,但方言多样性依然存在,有迹象表明,方言差异在某些地方可能正在加剧,即使在其他地方,这种差异正在消失。尽管非标准方言或白话方言经常被错误地贬低为“不恰当”或“无教养”的言语,但所有方言都是真正的交流形式,方言差异是文化和个人独特性的重要组成部分,往往是必不可少的。
In this chapter, we have explored the nature of dialect variation, or variation within a single language. We have seen that dialect variation is not random or haphazard but is regularly patterned according to both linguistic factors and social factors (for example, region, social class, social network, ethnicity, age). Dialects show regular patterns of variation on all levels of language, from the pronunciation of individual sounds to patterns for conducting entire conversations. In addition, individual speakers display stylistic variation according to such factors as the formality of the speech situation, who they’re talking to, and what sort of image they wish to project. Dialect variation is intricately tied to language change, since changes do not take place suddenly but rather begin in variability between old and new features. It is even possible to see language change in progress, by looking at the speech of different age groups of speakers in a single community at a single moment in time. Finally, we have seen that, despite increasing intercommunication among the world’s people and the increasing spread of English as a world language, dialect diversity is alive and well, and there are indications that dialect differences may be intensifying in some places even if they are dying out in others. Despite the fact that nonstandard or vernacular dialects are often wrongly disparaged as “improper” or “uneducated” speech, all dialects are bona fide forms of communication, and dialect differentiation is an important, often essential, component of cultural and personal distinctiveness.
阿巴拉契亚英语中的 A 前缀(改编自 Wolfram 和 Schilling-Estes 2006)。查看列表 A 中的句子对,并确定每对中的哪个句子用a前缀听起来更好。例如,在第一个句子对中,说“A-building is hard work”还是“He was a-building a house”听起来更好?对于每个句子对,只需选择一个用a -听起来更好的句子即可。
A-prefixing in Appalachian English (adapted from Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 2006). Look at the sentence pairs in list A and decide which sentence in each pair sounds better with an a-prefix. For example, in the first sentence pair, does it sound better to say, A-building is hard work or He was a-building a house? For each sentence pair, just choose one sentence that sounds better with the a-.
列表 A. 以a-为前缀的句子对
List A. Sentence pairs for a-prefixing
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根据a前缀的选择检查每个句子对,并回答以下问题。
Examine each of the sentence pairs in terms of the choices for the a-prefix and answer the following questions.
弄清a前缀的模式的第一步与-ing词的词性有关。现在让我们看看与介词(例如from和by)相关的另一个区别。根据列表 B 中的句子对,判断a形式是否可以用在介词后。使用与列表 A 相同的技巧。选择每个句子对中听起来更好的句子,并判断它是带介词的句子还是不带介词的句子。
The first step in figuring out the pattern for the a-prefix is related to the part of speech of the -ing word. Now let’s look at another difference related to prepositions such as from and by. Based on the sentence pairs in list B, say whether or not the a-form can be used after a preposition. Use the same technique you used for list A. Select the sentence that sounds better for each sentence pair and say whether it is the sentence with or without the preposition.
列表 B.图案化的进一步细节
List B. A further detail for a-patterning
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现在,我们又多了一个与介词相关的细节,可以用于找出 -前缀用法的模式。但是, -前缀用法模式还有另一部分。不过,这一次,它与发音有关。对于以下 -ing词,尝试找出发音方面是什么让一个句子听起来比另一个句子更好。为了帮助您找出对这种模式至关重要的发音特征,每个-ing词的重读音节都用符号 ′ 标记。按照您在每对句子中选择发音更好的句子时所采用的相同程序进行操作。
We now have another detail for figuring out the pattern for a-prefix use related to prepositions. But there is still another part to the pattern for a-prefix use. This time, however, it is related to pronunciation. For the following -ing words, try to figure out what it is about the pronunciation that makes one sentence sound better than the other. To help you figure out the pronunciation trait that is critical for this pattern, the stressed or accented syllable of each -ing word is marked with the symbol ′. Follow the same procedure that you did in choosing the sentence in each sentence pair that sounds better.
列表 C. 找出a-前缀的发音模式
List C. Figuring out a pronunciation pattern for the a-prefix
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准确说明使用a前缀的模式是如何运作的。务必包括您对列表 A、B 和 C 中示例的检查中的三个不同细节。
Say exactly how the pattern for using the a-prefix works. Be sure to include the three different details from your examination of the examples in Lists A, B, and C.
在列表 D 中,说出哪些句子可以带a前缀。利用你对规则的理解来解释为什么 -ing形式可以或不可以带a前缀。
In list D, say which of the sentences may take an a-prefix. Use your understanding of the rule to explain why the -ing form may or may not take the a-prefix.
列表 D. 应用a-前缀规则
List D. Applying the a-prefix rule
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她不断地给我布置更多的工作。 She kept handing me more work. |
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全队正在回忆这场比赛。 The team was remémbering the game. |
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该队凭借出色的防守赢得了胜利。 The team won by playing great defense. |
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全队打得非常努力。 The team was playing real hard. |
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教练迷人。 The coach was charming. |
对方言(及其使用者)的态度。想出三种英语或您的母语,并列出与说这三种语言的人相关的一些正面和负面价值观。您是否根据方言对人们的特征持有某些信念?在了解了非标准和标准语言变体的规律模式后,您能对这些信念说些什么?如果可能的话,想出一个似乎不符合他们所说的方言的刻板印象的人(无论是公众人物还是您认识的人)。
Attitudes toward dialects (and their speakers). Think of three varieties of English or your native language and list some of the positive and negative values associated with people who speak each of the three varieties. Have you held certain beliefs about people’s characteristics based on their dialects? What can you say about these beliefs after learning about the regular patterning of nonstandard as well as standard language varieties? If possible, think of a person (whether a public figure or someone you know personally) who doesn’t seem to fit the stereotypes associated with the dialect they speak.
电影和电视中的方言。选择电影或电视节目中的三个角色,这些角色使用英语或其他语言的可识别方言,并描述这些角色及其方言。你认为节目的创作者为什么选择让角色使用这些方言?方言会引起什么样的联想/刻板印象?
Dialects in movies and television. Choose three characters in a movie or television show with identifiable dialects of English or another language and describe these characters and their dialects. Why do you think the show’s creators chose to have the characters use those dialects? What associations/stereotypes do the dialects call forth?
调查社会和风格差异:-in与-ing。录制与两位英语母语人士的对话或非正式采访,他们根据本章讨论的社会特征之一而有所不同,可能是性别、社会阶层或种族。您应该分别进行每场对话,每场对话至少持续半小时。获得每位发言者的知情同意以进行录音也非常重要:未经参与者许可,请勿尝试进行秘密录音!
Investigating social and stylistic variation: -in vs. -ing. Record a conversation or informal interview with two native English speakers who differ according to one of the social characteristics discussed in this chapter, perhaps gender, social class, or ethnicity. You should conduct each conversation separately, and each should last at least half an hour. It is also very important that you obtain informed consent from each speaker to record them: do not attempt to conduct secret recordings without the permission of the participants!
录音完成后,听每一段录音,仔细记下每个以 -ing 结尾的单词,以及 -ing的发音是in还是ing。如果你觉得有些单词的ing永远不会发音为in(例如ring),记下来但不要将它们从最终计算中排除。将 每个说话者的总ing单词中 in 发音的数量加起来,并计算出百分比。这两个说话者对此方言特征的使用程度是否不同?如果是,你认为这是为什么?这两个说话者在对话/采访的不同时刻似乎有不同的使用程度吗?如果是,你认为这是为什么?
Once you have made your recordings, listen to each recording and note carefully each word ending in -ing and whether the -ing was pronounced as in or ing. If there are any words where you feel like the ing would never be pronounced as in (e.g. ring), note these down but exclude them from your final calculations. Add up how many in pronunciations out of total ing words you had for each speaker and calculate a percentage figure as well. Do the two speakers show different usage levels for this dialect feature? If so, why do you think this is? Did either of the two speakers seem to have different usage levels at different moments in the conversation/interview? If so, why do you think this might be?
性别和语言差异。研究人员发现,基于社会阶层和说话风格的性别语言差异存在不同的模式:例如,在某些社区中,中下层/上层工人阶级的女性和男性言语差异比其他社会阶层更大;此外,在某些社区中,女性在正式场合使用的标准形式多于男性,但在休闲场合使用方言多于男性。基于性别的差异模式也会因对话而异,具体取决于谁在与谁交谈。反思一下自己与不同性别的人的语言用法。你在与同性朋友交谈时和与异性朋友交谈时说话方式是否不同?单性别群体和混合性别群体又如何呢?这些差异仅仅取决于性别还是也取决于其他因素(例如年龄、熟悉程度)?性取向会造成影响吗?提供你注意到的语言差异的例子,无论是语用、词汇、音系还是形态句法。
Gender and language variation. Researchers have found different patterns for gender-based language differences based on social class and speech style: for example, in some communities, there is more differentiation between women’s and men’s speech in the lower-middle/upper-working class than in other social classes; in addition, in some communities, women use more standard forms than men in formal settings but more vernacular speech than men in casual settings. Patterns of gender-based variation can also vary from conversation to conversation, depending on who is talking to whom. Reflect on your own language usages with people of different genders. Do you talk differently when talking with a same-gender friend vs. a friend of a different gender? What about a single-gender vs. mixed-gender group? Do the differences depend solely on gender or also other factors (e.g. age, familiarity)? Does sexual orientation make a difference? Provide examples of the linguistic differences you notice, whether pragmatic, lexical, phonological, or morphosyntactic.
语言变异和语言变化。研究人员发现,在所谓的“倒装结构”中插入of可能是美式英语中的变化。此外,他们还发现证据表明of的插入不是随机的,而是可能受到某些语言和社会因素的影响(Nylund and Seals 2010,即将出版)。然而,研究仍在进行中,结论尚不明确。
Language variation and language change. Researchers have found evidence that inserting of into so-called “inverted degree constructions,” as in It’s not that big (of) a deal or It’s not that bad (of) a problem, may be a change in progress in American English. In addition, they have found evidence that the insertion of of is not random but may be affected by certain linguistic and social factors (Nylund and Seals 2010, forthcoming). Research is still ongoing, however, and conclusions are tentative.
为了帮助研究人员确定带有of的倒装程度结构是否确实在增加,以及可能影响of变化使用的制约因素,请对不同年龄段的选定英语使用者群体进行以下简短调查。在选择调查样本时,您需要仔细考虑要控制哪些因素以及要测试哪些因素作为插入of的可能制约因素——例如,母语人士和非母语人士的身份、地域性、性别、种族。请记住,纳入的因素越多,您需要调查的人就越多,才能获得有意义的结果。您还需要确保样本尽可能平衡——例如,调查每个年龄段、每个性别组等相同数量的人。此外,您还需要决定如何进行调查——纸质、口头或在线。调查的介绍可以根据您的特定需要进行调整。
To help researchers determine whether inverted degree constructions with of are indeed on the rise, as well as possible conditioning factors on the variable use of of, administer the following short survey to a selected population of English speakers of different age groups. In choosing your sample of people to survey, you will want to carefully consider what factors you want to control for vs. what factors you want to test as possible conditioning factors for of insertion – for example, native vs. non-native speaker status, regionality, gender, ethnicity. Bear in mind that the more factors you include, the more people you will have to survey to obtain meaningful results. You will also want to ensure that your sample is as balanced as possible – for example, by surveying the same number of people of each age group, each gender group, etc. In addition, you will need to decide how to administer the survey – on paper, orally, or perhaps online. The introduction to the survey may be adapted to suit your particular needs.
收集完所有调查结果后,将它们汇编起来,以确定在倒置程度结构中of的使用是否确实与年龄相关,因此可能是一种进步的变化。如果有的话,还有哪些其他社会因素与 of的使用相关?与语言因素有任何相关性吗?以简短的书面报告形式呈现您的结果,并在适当的情况下附上表格和图表。
When you have collected all your survey results, compile them in order to determine whether reported use of of in inverted degree constructions indeed correlates with age and therefore may be a change in progress. What other social factors correlate with reported of usage, if any? Are there any correlations with linguistic factors? Present your results in the form of a short written report accompanied by tables and graphs, where appropriate.
乔治城大学语言学系的研究人员正在对英语中特定类型句子的使用情况进行调查,这些调查都涉及程度问题(大/小、好/坏等)。您可以花几分钟时间回答以下调查,以帮助我们。您提供的所有信息将仅用于我们的研究目的,不会以任何方式用于识别您的身份。
Researchers in the Georgetown University Linguistics Department are conducting a survey of the use of particular types of sentences in English, all of which involve matters of degree (big/small, good/bad, etc.). You can help us out by taking a few minutes to give us your responses to the following survey. All information you provide will be used solely for our research purposes and cannot be used to identify you in any way.
请指出您是否会说以下每一句话:
Please indicate whether you would say each of the following:
是的 有时 不 1) 这没什么大不了的。 ___ ___ ___ 2)损失不算太大。 ___ ___ ___ 3) 这本书不太好。 ___ ___ ___ 4)这损失不算小。 ___ ___ ___ 5)这本书没什么帮助。 ___ ___ ___ 6) 这本书还不错。 ___ ___ ___ 7)损失并不是那么小。 ___ ___ ___ 8) 它并不是一个很有用的工具。 ___ ___ ___ 9)这本书并不是那么无聊。 ___ ___ ___ 10) 这可不是什么好交易。 ___ ___ ___ 11) 这本书并没有那么糟糕。 ___ ___ ___ 12) 这笔交易并没有那么糟糕。 ___ ___ ___ 13) 这本书并不那么有趣。 ___ ___ ___
Yes Sometimes No 1) It’s not that big of a deal. ___ ___ ___ 2) It’s not that big of a loss. ___ ___ ___ 3) It’s not that good a book. ___ ___ ___ 4) It’s not that small a loss. ___ ___ ___ 5) It’s not that helpful of a book. ___ ___ ___ 6) It’s not that bad of a book. ___ ___ ___ 7) It’s not that minimal a loss. ___ ___ ___ 8) It’s not that useful a tool. ___ ___ ___ 9) It’s not that boring a book. ___ ___ ___ 10) It’s not that wonderful of a deal. ___ ___ ___ 11) It’s not that awful of a book. ___ ___ ___ 12) It’s not that terrible a deal. ___ ___ ___ 13) It’s not that interesting of a book. ___ ___ ___
语言和文化以复杂的方式紧密交织在一起;事实上,许多人类语言学家认为它们是不可分割的。话语的意义不仅来自所说的话,还来自文化上一致认可的关于如何使用和解释这些词的惯例,以及它们在过去在特定文化中的使用方式。本章通过研究在不同国家长大、使用不同语言的说话者之间以及不同种族和地区背景的美国人之间的对话互动的代表性场景来说明语言和文化之间的关系。开篇场景是一位美国学生和他的德国同学之间的互动,说明了语言中受文化影响的方面,这些方面可能导致沟通不畅或对意图和能力的相互误判。接下来,我们介绍框架的概念,并探讨框架的差异如何加剧歧视和社会不平等。这通过参考以下文章来说明John Gumperz 的跨种族交流研究。然后,我们讨论礼貌策略以及由于系统地使用重叠、语速和间接性等特征而产生的对话风格。然后,我们考虑对话的礼仪性质。通过语言和性别的例子说明了对话礼仪的差异。“互补分裂”概念解释了为什么当风格不同的人互相交谈时,事情往往会变得更糟而不是更好。最后,我们考虑语言在多大程度上塑造了思维并提供一种整理和观察世界连贯性的方法,我们认为语言和文化最好被视为一个单一的实体:语言文化。
Language and culture are closely intertwined in complex ways; indeed, many anthropological linguists argue that they are inseparable. The meaning of utterances comes not only from the words spoken but also from culturally agreed-upon conventions for how those words are used and interpreted, as well as from how they have been used in the past within a given culture. This chapter illustrates the relationship between language and culture by examining representative scenarios of conversational interactions between speakers who grew up in different countries speaking different languages, and between Americans of different ethnic and regional backgrounds. An opening scenario of an interaction between an American student and his German counterparts illustrates culturally influenced aspects of language that can cause miscommunication or mutual misjudgment of intentions and abilities. Next, we introduce the concept of framing and explore how differences in framing can exacerbate discrimination and social inequality. This is illustrated with reference to John Gumperz’s studies of interethnic communication. We move then to discussion of politeness strategies and the conversational styles that result from their systematic use of features like overlap, rate of speech, and indirectness. We then consider the ritual nature of conversation. Differences in conversational rituals are illustrated with examples from language and gender. The concept “complementary schismogenesis” accounts for why things often get worse rather than better when people with different styles talk to each other. Finally, we consider the extent to which language shapes thinking and provides a way to order and see coherence in the world, and we suggest that language and culture are better thought of as a single entity: languaculture.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
一名美国大学生来到德国开始留学计划。他对时事和国际事务有着深入的了解,对眼前的冒险做好了充分的准备,并充满热情。但当他开始与德国大学生互动时,事情开始变得不对劲。在得知他是美国人后,许多德国学生几乎立即开始对美国的外交政策进行恶毒攻击或对宗教进行激烈争论。我们的美国学生不可能与他不认识的人谈论宗教。他对攻击他的国家以及用好战的语气发表这些言论感到非常反感,因此他通常会保持沉默。如果他试图回应这些指控,德国学生通常会试图打断他或大声呵斥他。美国学生在谈话结束后感到震惊,越来越相信德国学生固执己见、傲慢无礼。而德国学生则对他们开始活跃交流的尝试失败感到沮丧。通过同样的对话,他们越来越确信美国学生知识贫乏、冷漠且不太有趣。
An American university student arrives in Germany to begin a study-abroad program. With his deep knowledge of current events and international affairs, he is well prepared for and enthusiastic about the adventure before him. But as he begins to interact with German university students, things start to go wrong. Almost immediately after learning that he is American, many German students launch into vitriolic attacks on American foreign policy or passionate arguments about religion. There is no way that our American student is going to talk about religion with someone he doesn’t know. And he is so offended by the attacks on his country and by the belligerent tone used to present them that he usually clams up. If he does try to respond to the accusations, the German students typically try to cut him off or shout him down. The American student comes away from these conversations shaken, increasingly convinced that German students are opinionated, arrogant, and rude. For their part, the German students are frustrated that their attempts to begin a lively interchange have fallen flat. They come away from the same conversations increasingly convinced that American students are uninformed, apathetic, and not very interesting.
此描述基于海蒂·伯恩斯 ( 1986 ) 是乔治城大学的教授,她曾与许多准备前往德国留学并最终从德国归来的大学生合作过。伯恩斯博士认为,美国学生和德国学生之间的这种相互挫折和刻板印象很常见。尽管德国学生说英语,美国学生说德语,但他们在交谈时对如何使用语言有着截然不同的假设,他们并没有意识到自己是在运用从文化中习得的语言习惯。他们认为他们只是试图以不言而喻的恰当方式交谈。
This description is based on an article written by Heidi Byrnes (1986), a Georgetown University professor who has worked with many college students preparing for and returning from study-abroad programs in her native Germany. According to Dr. Byrnes, these mutual frustrations and stereotypes between American and German students are common. Although the German students speak English and the American students speak German, they have very different assumptions about how to use language when they talk to each other, and it does not occur to them that they are exercising culturally learned linguistic habits. They believe they are simply trying to talk to each other in ways that are self-evidently appropriate.
众所周知,生活在不同国家的人讲不同的语言。但正如美国学生出国后很快学到的那样,了解词汇和语言的语法只是成功交流的起点。不同文化的成员不仅说不同的语言,而且使用他们所说的语言的方式也不同——对于说什么合适以及如何说有不同的假设。事实上,生活在同一个国家、说同一种语言的人也会对说什么和如何说有不同的假设,这取决于他们的种族和阶级背景、地理区域、性别和许多其他影响。
Everyone knows that those who live in different countries speak different languages. But as American students quickly learn when they go abroad, knowing the vocabulary and grammar of the language is only a starting point for successful communication. Members of different cultures not only speak different languages but also have different ways of using the languages they speak – different assumptions about what’s appropriate to say and how to go about saying it. In fact, people who live in the same country and speak the same language can also have different assumptions about what to say and how to say it, depending on their ethnic and class backgrounds, geographic region, gender, and many other influences.
说话方式决定了你如何表达你的意思,在我们的例子中,这种方式区分了德国人和美国人的语言使用,这种说话方式出现在语言使用的每个层面上,从明显的元素,如适合谈论什么,到不太明显的言语方面,如语调(语言的音乐韵律)和轮流发言(如何发言)。当我们互相交谈时,我们倾向于专注于我们想说的内容,并且我们会自动做出这些以及许多其他语言选择,以传达我们所说的话的意思。这些选择往往因文化而异。以下是一些语言元素,它们表征并区分了上述情况下德国和美国学生的语言使用:
The ways of speaking that characterize how you say what you mean, which distinguish the Germans’ and Americans’ use of language in our example, occur at every level of language use, from such obvious elements as what it is appropriate to talk about to less obvious aspects of speech like intonation (the musical lilt of language) and turn-taking (how to get the floor). When we talk to each other, we tend to focus on what we want to say, and we automatically make these and many other linguistic choices that communicate how we mean what we say. These choices tend to differ from one culture to another. Here are some of the linguistic elements that characterize and distinguish the German and American students’ use of language in the situation described above:
所有这些说话方式在人们互相交谈时都会发挥作用。它们只是我们在对话中用来表达我们所说的话的意思和我们认为自己在做什么的语言元素。它们往往是不可见的,因为我们将这些语言元素的含义视为理所当然;我们发现它们是不言而喻的。当对话者对这些语言元素有共同的期望时,没有理由关注它们。但是,当没有共同的习惯和期望时,我们需要注意它们,首先是因为听众可能会误解我们所说的话的意思,其次是因为这些说话方式也是我们判断彼此意图和能力的基础。
All these ways of speaking operate whenever people talk to each other. They are simply the linguistic elements that we use to communicate how we mean what we say and what we think we are doing at each moment in a conversation. They tend to be invisible, because we take the meaning of these linguistic elements for granted; we find them self-evident. When conversationalists share expectations about these linguistic elements, there is no reason to pay attention to them. But when habits and expectations regarding their use are not shared, we need to pay attention to them, first because listeners may misinterpret how we mean what we say, and second because these ways of speaking also form the basis for judgments we make about each other’s intentions and abilities.
上述讨论可能给人这样的印象:所有德国人都有相同的交流习惯,而所有美国人都有不同的交流习惯。但事实并非如此。没有两个人使用语言的方式完全相同。“文化”是一种高度复杂和多方面的现象。每个人都有独特的个性,同时还有许多其他“文化”影响,例如地理区域(想想新英格兰、中西部、南部以及这些地区内所有较小的地理区域);种族群体(在美国人中,这包括他们祖先所在国家的影响);社会阶层;性别;职业(想想会计师与心理学家之间的区别);性取向;等等。这些和其他文化影响会影响词语、表达、语调模式、话轮转换习惯以及说话者表达意思的其他语言方面。这些说话方式在传达思想的同时,也传达了你认为自己在特定对话中正在做什么、你与对话者之间的关系或希望建立的关系,以及你是什么样的人。由于这些语言元素因文化影响而异,它们会影响不同文化背景的说话者彼此交谈时的情况其他。
The above discussion could give the impression that all Germans share the same communicative habits and all Americans share a different set of communicative habits. But this is not the case. No two individuals have exactly the same ways of using language. “Culture” is a highly complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Each individual has a unique personality, and there are many other “cultural” influences as well, such as geographic region (think of New England, the Midwest, the South, and all the smaller geographic regions within these areas); ethnic groups (among Americans, these include the influence of the countries from which their ancestors came); social class; gender; profession (think of an accountant as compared to a psychologist); sexual orientation; and so on. These and other cultural influences can affect the words, expressions, intonation patterns, turn-taking habits, and other linguistic aspects of how speakers say what they mean. At the same time that these ways of speaking communicate ideas, they also communicate what you think you are doing in a particular conversation, the relationship you have or want to have with the person you are speaking to, and what kind of person you are. Since these linguistic elements vary by cultural influence, they affect what happens when speakers of different cultural backgrounds talk to each other.
接下来,我们将更仔细地研究语言元素如何协同工作以在互动中传达意义和协调社会关系;它们的使用在不同文化群体之间有何差异;以及这些差异如何影响不同文化背景的说话者相互交谈时的结果。
In what follows, we will look more closely at how linguistic elements work together to communicate meaning and negotiate social relationships in interaction; how their use can differ from one cultural group to another; and how these differences affect the outcome when speakers of varying cultural backgrounds talk to each other.
让我们从框架的概念开始,因为它控制着我们将要讨论的所有其他语言信号。框架是说话者在特定交流中传达他们认为自己在做什么的方式,因此也是解释他们所说内容的方式。
Let’s start with the concept of framing, because it governs all the other linguistic signals we will discuss. Framing is the way speakers communicate what they think they are doing in a particular interchange, and therefore how to interpret what they say.
人类学家 Gregory Bateson ([ 1955 ]1972) 在参观动物园时萌生了框架的想法,当时他看到两只小猴子在玩耍。Bateson 问自己,猴子(和动物园的游客)如何知道,尽管它们表现出攻击性(例如互相咬),但它们并不是真的在打架,只是在玩耍。换句话说,“玩耍”和“打斗”是决定如何解读咬伤的交替框架。贝特森总结说,虽然咬伤是信息(动作的字面意义),但猴子们同时向对方传达了一个元信息(“这是玩耍”),表明咬伤意味着什么。元信息发出一个框架信号——猴子咬伤对方时在做什么——在这个框架内,咬伤被理解为玩耍。
Anthropologist Gregory Bateson ([1955]1972) developed the idea of framing during a visit to a zoo, where he watched two young monkeys playing. Bateson asked himself how the monkeys (and the zoo visitors) knew that although they were behaving aggressively (for example, biting each other), they were not really fighting, but just playing. In other words, “playing” and “fighting” are alternate frames that determine how the bites are to be interpreted. Bateson concluded that whereas the bite was the message (the literal meaning of the action) the monkeys simultaneously communicated to each other a metamessage (“This is play”) that signaled how the bites were meant. A metamessage signals a frame – what the monkeys were doing when they bit each other – within which bites are understood as playful.
在人类之间的对话中,每一句话都由一个元信息构成,元信息表明该句话的意图(例如,字面意思或讽刺,愤怒或戏弄)。元信息表明人们在特定语境中以特定方式说出特定词语时认为自己在做什么。对话中所说的一切都包括听众应如何解释所说的话的线索,以便参与者不仅了解所说的内容,还了解正在发生的事情。元信息由您表达意思的方式表示- 即我们上面列出的所有语言元素,例如语气,语速、响度、语调模式等。例如,在美式英语中,讽刺通常通过平淡的语调和对关键词的夸张重音来表示——篮球投丢后说“Nice one” ,或者说话者并不真正欣赏别人所说或所做的事时说“Thanks much”。惯用词和短语也可以表示评论的意图。例如,短语“ 你听说过关于……的那个吗”会提醒许多美国人接下来会讲一个笑话。任何有字典和语法书的人都可能理解这些词的意思,但为了理解如何解释这些词,对话者需要知道语言特征如何构成话语。
In conversations between human beings, every utterance is framed by a metamessage that signals how that utterance is intended (for example, literally or sarcastically, angrily or teasingly). The metamessage signals what people think they are doing when they speak particular words in particular ways in particular contexts. Everything said in a conversation includes clues to how listeners should interpret the words spoken, so that participants understand not only what is said but also what is going on. Metamessages are signaled by how you say what you mean – that is, all the linguistic elements that we listed above, such as tone of voice, rate of speech, loudness, intonational patterns, and so on. For example, in American English, sarcasm is often signaled by flat intonation and exaggerated stress on key words – Nice one after a missed basketball shot, or Thanks a lot when a speaker does not really appreciate what another has said or done. Idiomatic words and phrases can also signal how a remark is intended. For example, the phrase Did you hear the one about … would alert many Americans that a joke will follow. Anyone who has a dictionary and a grammar book could potentially understand what the words mean, but in order to understand how to interpret those words a conversationalist needs to know how the linguistic features frame the utterance.
元信息和它们所传达的框架之间的对比印象在文化内交流中也无处不在。例如,一位年轻女士正在准备沙拉,她的母亲问她:“你要把西红柿切成四瓣吗?”她回答说:“我就是这么做的。这样做有错吗?”她的母亲说:“不,只是我个人会把它们切成片。”女儿切了西红柿,但她心里想:“难道我不能做任何事而不让妈妈告诉我她认为我应该用其他方式做吗?”
Contrasting impressions of metamessages and the frames they signal are also ubiquitous in intracultural communication. For example, a young woman was preparing salad when her mother asked, “Are you going to quarter those tomatoes?” She replied, “Well I was. Is that wrong?” Her mother said, “No, it’s just that personally, I would slice them.” The daughter sliced the tomatoes, but she thought to herself, “Can’t I do anything without my mother letting me know she thinks I should do it some other way?”
女儿把母亲的问题听成了批评,因为西红柿应该切成片,而母亲则真的认为她的问题不包含这样的元信息,而只是单纯地索要信息。同样,女儿会把“这条裤子不好看”这句话听成批评,而母亲则真心希望它能有所帮助。在这两个例子中,母亲和女儿对这些词的含义(信息)意见一致,但对它们所暗示的内容(即表明说话者意图的元信息)意见不一。
The daughter heard her mother’s question as criticism, framed as such by the metamessage that the tomatoes should be sliced, whereas the mother truly believed that her question bore no such metamessage, but was framed as a request for information, pure and simple. Similarly, the remark “Those pants don’t flatter you” can be heard as criticism by a daughter whereas her mother genuinely intends it to be helpful. In both examples, mother and daughter agree on what the words mean (the message) but disagree on what they imply – that is, the metamessage indicating the speaker’s intentions.
框架概念表明语言和文化密不可分:如果不传递元信息(即你的意思),你就无法通过语言交流或解释含义,而传递元信息的方式因文化而异。例如,想象一下,去美国旅游的人说当地语言,但不熟悉当地文化。当被问到“你好吗?”时,他们可能会开始描述健康问题,而当问这个问题的人没有听答案时,他们会感到惊讶和生气。(当这种情况反复发生时,他们可能会认为美国人不真诚。)游客理解了问题,但没有理解框架;“你好吗?”这个问题是例行问候,而不是询问信息。
The concept of framing shows that language and culture are inseparable: you cannot communicate or interpret meaning through language without signaling metamessages – how you mean what you say – and the way metamessages are signaled varies from culture to culture. Imagine, for example, visitors to the United States who speak the language but are unfamiliar with the culture. When asked How are you? they may begin to describe a health problem and be surprised and offended when the person who asked this question does not listen to the answer. (When this happens repeatedly, they may conclude that Americans are insincere.) The visitors understood the question but not the frame; the question How are you? was a routine greeting, not a request for information.
每个群体都有文化上约定俗成的问候方式,这些方式并非字面意思。不熟悉这种惯例的人可能会按字面意思来理解问候。在缅甸,一种常规问候语是“你吃了吗?”当被问到这个问题时,访问缅甸的美国人可能会认为他们被邀请去吃午饭,并感到他们的否定回答被忽略时,他们就会遭到冷遇。他们没有理解这个问题作为问候语的结构。典型的爪哇语问候语是“你要去哪儿? ” ,而预期的例行回答是“在那边”。不熟悉这种例行回答的游客可能会理解“问候”的结构并想知道“我去哪里关你什么事?”人们在任何时候交谈时,能够听懂语言并从而解读信息(别人所说的话的字面意思)是一个开始,但这还不够。要真正理解所说的内容,倾听者必须能够解读识别结构的信息(这些词的含义,说话者在这种语境中以这种方式说这些词是为了什么)。要做到这一点,不仅需要熟悉语言,还需要熟悉文化。
Every group of people has culturally agreed-upon ways of greeting each other that are not meant literally. Those who are unfamiliar with the routine are likely to interpret the greeting literally. In Burma, a routine greeting is Have you eaten yet? Americans visiting Burma, when asked this question, may think they are being invited to lunch and feel snubbed when their negative reply is ignored. They miss the framing of this question as a greeting. A typical Javanese greeting is the question, Where are you going? The expected routinized reply is Over there. A visitor unfamiliar with this routine may miss the frame “greeting” and wonder, “What business is it of yours where I’m going?” Any time people talk to each other, being able to understand the language and therefore interpret the message – the literal meaning of what others say – is a start, but it is not sufficient. To really understand what is said, a listener must be able to interpret the metamessages that identify the frame – how the words are meant, what the speaker is doing by saying these words in this way in this context. To do this, one needs to be familiar not only with the language but also with the culture.
每句话都必须以某种语调模式、某种语速、某种音调和音量的组合等来表达。但是,不同文化群体的成员使用这些语言元素来表达话语的习惯和假设各不相同。事实上,这些表达话语的方式在很大程度上决定了说话者如何将彼此视为特定文化群体的成员。文化部分是由使用语言的方式构成的,语言的存在只取决于它在文化中的形成。特别的文化。
Every utterance must be said in some intonational pattern, at some rate of speech, with some combination of pitch and loudness, and so on. But habits for and assumptions about using these linguistic elements to frame utterances differ among members of different cultural groups. Indeed, these ways of framing utterances are a large part of how speakers identify each other as members of particular cultural groups. Culture is constituted in part by ways of using language, and language exists only as it is shaped in particular cultures.
语调和响度等特征如何影响话语解释的框架?当这些语言特征的使用习惯不同时,会产生什么后果?让我们看一下人类学语言学家 John Gumperz ( 1982 ) 分析的一个具体案例,他是互动社会语言学,是语言学的一个分支学科,研究语言如何在互动中创造意义。(互动社会语言学是一种话语分析。)Gumperz 录制并分析了不同社会和文化背景的说话者之间发生的真实对话,并将互动中的一些问题追溯到文化上不同的语言特征使用习惯。Gumperz 将这些语言特征称为语境化线索,因为它们发出信号或“提示”说话者想要表达的语境。请注意,这种意义上的“语境”与“框架”概念类似,因为它指的是说话者在说话时认为自己在做什么,以及他们希望别人如何解读他们的话。
How do such features as intonation and loudness signal the frame for interpreting utterances, and what are the consequences when habits regarding the use of these linguistic features differ? Let’s look at a specific case analyzed by anthropological linguist John Gumperz (1982), the founder of interactional sociolinguistics, a subdiscipline of linguistics that examines how language creates meaning in interaction. (Interactional sociolinguistics is a type of discourse analysis.) Gumperz tape-recorded and analyzed real conversations that took place among speakers of different social and cultural backgrounds, and traced some of the problems in the interactions to culturally different habits for using the linguistic features we have discussed. Gumperz calls these linguistic features contextualization cues, because they signal, or “cue,” the context in which speakers intend their utterances. Note that “context” in this sense is comparable to the notion of “frame,” because it refers to what speakers think they are doing when they speak, and how they intend their words to be interpreted.
Gumperz 的特定目标是了解语言使用方面的文化差异如何导致对少数群体成员的歧视和社会不平等。以下是他研究的一个例子,以及他如何发现语言是问题的一部分。20 世纪 70 年代,Gumperz 被要求解决英国伦敦的一个棘手的就业问题。英国机场的员工自助餐厅最近首次聘请了来自印度和巴基斯坦的食品服务员,主管和顾客都在抱怨这些新员工“粗暴且不合作”。南亚员工则抱怨他们受到了歧视。为了弄清发生了什么,Gumperz 使用了互动社会语言学的研究方法。首先,他录下了顾客在自助餐厅排队取餐时发生的互动。然后,他听了录音带,并找出了英国和南亚服务员语调模式的对比有助于解释这两起抱怨。当顾客选择肉类时,服务员会询问是否需要肉汁。英国和南亚服务员都只说一个词“ Gravy”来表示要肉汁。但英国服务员说这个词时用的是升调,而南亚服务员说的是降调。这种微小的语调差异——单词末尾的音高是上升还是下降——导致了非常不同的印象。在英国人听来,用升调说“Gravy?”就像一个问题,粗略地解释为“你想要肉汁吗?”。与此形成鲜明对比的是,用降调说的“Gravy”在英国人听来就像一个陈述,粗略地解释为“这是肉汁。要么吃,要么不要。 ”
Gumperz’s particular goal was to understand how cultural differences in language use can lead to discrimination against members of minority groups and social inequality. Here is one example of a situation he studied and how he discovered that language was part of the problem. In the 1970s, Gumperz was asked to address a thorny employment situation in London, England. The staff cafeteria at a British airport had recently hired food servers from India and Pakistan for the first time, and both supervisors and customers were complaining that these new employees were “surly and uncooperative.” For their part, the South Asian employees were complaining that they were being discriminated against. To figure out what was going on, Gumperz used the research methods of interactional sociolinguistics. First, he tape-recorded interactions that took place while customers were getting food on the cafeteria line. He then listened to the audiotapes and identified a contrast in the intonation patterns of British and South Asian food servers that helped explain both complaints. When customers chose a meat course, the server asked whether or not they wanted gravy. Both British and South Asian servers made this offer by uttering a single word, Gravy. But the British servers said this word with rising intonation while the South Asian servers said it with falling intonation. This tiny difference in intonation – whether the pitch went up or down at the end of a single word – resulted in very different impressions. To British ears, Gravy? said with rising intonation sounded like a question roughly paraphrased as Would you like gravy? In stark contrast, Gravy, said with falling intonation, was heard by the British as a statement which might roughly be paraphrased, This is gravy. Take it or leave it.
接下来,Gumperz 向英国和南亚员工播放了互动的片段。英国餐厅员工指出,南亚员工的反应表明他们对顾客很粗鲁。南亚餐厅员工觉得他们发现英国同事表现出歧视和偏见,因为他们因为说了和英国同事一模一样的话而受到批评。直到他们的主管和英语老师解释了不同的语调模式如何导致不同的含义时,南亚服务员才明白他们所得到的负面反应。事实上,他们认识到英国同事使用的语调模式在他们听来很奇怪。同时,主管们了解到,对于说南亚语言的人来说,降调只是在那种情况下提问的正常方式。
Next, Gumperz played segments of the interactions back to both British and South Asian employees. The British cafeteria workers pointed to the South Asians’ responses as evidence that they were rude to customers. The South Asian cafeteria workers felt that they had caught their British colleagues displaying discrimination and prejudice, since they were being criticized for saying exactly the same thing as their British co-workers. It was only when their supervisor and English teacher explained how the different intonation patterns resulted in different meanings that the South Asian servers understood the negative reactions they had been getting. Indeed, they recognized that intonation patterns used by their British co-workers had struck their ears as odd. At the same time, the supervisors learned that for speakers of South Asian languages, the falling intonation was simply the normal way of asking a question in that context.
此类语境化线索的使用并非无意识的;当有人指出时,说话者会很容易地识别出它们。但它们是自动的;我们使用它们时不会去思考或关注它们。换句话说,语境化线索(构成意义的语言元素)的使用是传统化的——长期的习惯与给定的意图相关联。在英式英语中,用升调说出的单词通常与问题相关联,听者会填补缺失的部分:快乐?很可能被解释为你快乐吗?而受伤?将被解释为疼吗?虽然这对英式英语使用者来说似乎很自然,但升调和问是非问题之间的联系(以及降调和陈述之间的对比联系)既不是逻辑上必要的,也不是普遍的。在许多南亚语言中,是非问题以降调结尾。在学习和使用一门新语言时,我们通常会专注于选择合适的单词和正确的语法,但我们可能会自动使用我们在说母语时使用的语调模式。由于我们专注于信息本身,我们可能完全没有意识到我们说话的方式所传达的元信息。南亚裔食堂员工和他们的英国同事就是这种情况。对应者。
Such uses of contextualization cues are not unconscious; a speaker will readily recognize them when they are pointed out. But they are automatic; we use them without thinking about or focusing on them. In other words, the use of contextualization cues, linguistic elements that frame meaning, is conventionalized – associated by longstanding habit with a given intention. In British English, a single word uttered with rising intonation is conventionally associated with a question, and the hearer fills in the missing parts: Happy? is likely to be interpreted as Are you happy? And Hurt? would be interpreted as Does it hurt? Although this seems natural to speakers of British English, the link between rising intonation and asking a yes/no question (and the contrasting link between falling intonation and making a statement) is neither logically necessary nor universal. In many South Asian languages, yes/no questions end with falling intonation. When learning and using a new language, we typically concentrate on choosing the appropriate words and on getting the grammar right, but we may automatically use the intonational pattern we would use when speaking our native language. Since we’re focusing on the message, we may be completely unaware of the metamessage that is conveyed by the way we said it. This was the case with the South Asian cafeteria workers and their British counterparts.
这个例子表明,构成话语的微小语言特征在传达意义和处理个人之间以及文化群体之间的关系方面可以发挥重要作用。它还表明,语言信号方面的不同习惯会影响社会不平等和歧视的认知和现实。当然,当少数群体面临歧视和社会不平等;许多其他因素,如经济和政治,也发挥着作用,还有直接的偏见。但必须承认语言因素可能是问题的一部分,因为这些因素往往是看不见的,因此被忽视了。一个特别讽刺的是,除非认识到语言差异的影响,否则当不同文化背景的人在一起度过更多时间时,结果可能是对同一文化群体成员的偏见更多而不是更少。直到 Gumperz 提高他们对不同语调使用的认识,一起工作的南亚和英国服务员才学会更好地喜欢和理解对方。相反,他们对另一群体的负面印象不断得到强化,就像我们第一次实验中德国学生和美国学生之间产生的印象一样。例子。
This example shows how the tiny linguistic features that frame utterances can play a large part in conveying meaning and in negotiating relationships between individuals and between cultural groups. It also demonstrates that differing habits with regard to linguistic signals can contribute to the perception and the reality of social inequality and discrimination. Of course, linguistic processes are not the only factors at play when a minority group faces discrimination and social inequality; many other factors, such as economics and politics, play a role as well, as does outright prejudice. But it is important to acknowledge that linguistic elements may be part of the problem, as these elements are often invisible and therefore overlooked. A particular irony is that, unless the effect of linguistic differences is recognized, when individuals of differing cultural background spend more time together, the result may be more rather than less prejudice against members of a cultural group. Until Gumperz raised their awareness about their differing uses of intonation, the South Asian and British servers who worked together did not learn to like and understand each other better. Instead their negative impressions of the other group were reinforced repeatedly, like those that arose between the German and American students in our first example.
当孩子们在家乡社区学习的交流方式与老师期望的不同时,跨文化语言行为的差异可能会产生严重的负面影响。苏珊·菲利普斯(Susan Philips,1983)记录了温泉印第安保留地有英国教师的儿童的这一情况。杰弗里·舒尔茨(Jeffrey Shultz)、苏珊·弗洛里奥(Susan Florio)和弗雷德里克·埃里克森(Frederick Erickson)(1982)描述了波士顿一所小学的一名意大利裔美国儿童的类似案例。
Crosscultural differences in linguistic behavior can have significant negative consequences when the communicative style that children learn in their home communities differs from that expected by their teachers. Susan Philips (1983) has documented this for children on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation who have Anglo teachers. Jeffrey Shultz, Susan Florio, and Frederick Erickson (1982) have described a similar case with an Italian-American child in a Boston elementary school.
例如,菲利普斯指出,在盎格鲁教师执教的课堂上,印第安儿童经常保持沉默,因为教师要求儿童在全班面前发言,并希望儿童举手发言。这些发言形式要求学生的行为举止在印第安社区中是不恰当的,印第安社区不鼓励儿童表现出比同龄人更了解或更优秀,从而引起别人的注意。(然而,当教师允许学生在不受监督的情况下以小组形式学习时,印第安儿童的表现却比盎格鲁同学出色。)
Philips shows, for example, that Native American children often remain silent in classrooms run by Anglo teachers, because the teachers call on children to speak in front of the class as a whole, and they expect children to claim the floor by raising their hands. These formats for speaking require students to behave in ways that are considered inappropriate in the Native American community, where children are discouraged from drawing attention to themselves by acting as if they know more than or are better than their peers. (The Native American children, however, outshine their Anglo classmates when the teacher allows students to work unsupervised in small groups.)
舒尔茨、弗洛里奥和埃里克森还发现,如果学校和家里对说话规范的要求不同,孩子也会受到影响。他们录制了一位意大利裔美国儿童家中的对话,发现当大人说话时,孩子被鼓励大声说出自己的评论。这个家庭的孩子没有被告知一次只能听到一个人的声音。当这个男孩在课堂上像在家里一样大声说话时,他因行为不当而受到惩罚,并被认定为问题儿童。
Shultz, Florio, and Erickson also found that the child suffers when expectations for regulating talk differ at school and at home. They videotaped conversation in an Italian-American child’s home and discovered that the child was encouraged to pipe up with his own comments while adults were speaking. Children in this family were not instructed that only one voice should be heard at a time. When the boy spoke up in class much as he did at home, he was chastised for misbehavior and identified as a problem child.
框架概念有助于解释语言和文化之间的关系,但到目前为止,我们只讨论了词语是如何说出来的,而不是这些词语所表达的思想。在交流和协商社会关系时,你选择在特定情况下对特定人说什么同样重要。关于谁可以在何时对谁说什么的规范和期望也可能因文化而异。为了解释导致人们选择说什么的互动目标,语言学家使用礼貌一词。这个术语是技术意义上的,不同于我们说某人“有礼貌”或“不礼貌”的日常含义。从语言学的角度来看,礼貌是指一种平衡几个相互竞争的互动目标的方式。礼貌规范有助于解释不同文化背景的人们相互交谈时发生的一些情况。
The concept of framing helps explain the relationship between language and culture, but so far we have discussed only how words are spoken, not the ideas that those words express. What you choose to say to a particular person in a particular situation is just as important in communicating and negotiating social relationships. Norms and expectations about who can say what, to whom, and when, may vary across cultures as well. To explain the interactive goals that account for what people choose to say, linguists use the term politeness. This term is used in a technical sense, different from the everyday meaning when we say someone is “polite” or “impolite.” In linguistic terms, politeness refers to a way of balancing several competing interactive goals. Cultural differences in politeness norms help to explain some of what happens when people of different cultural backgrounds talk to each other.
语言学家罗宾·莱考夫([ 1975 ] 2004)提出了说话者在交流时应遵循 的三条融洽规则:
Linguist Robin Lakoff ([1975] 2004) identified three Rules of Rapport that speakers try to follow when they interact:
强调不同的融洽规则会导致不同的礼貌风格。
Emphasizing different Rules of Rapport leads to different styles of politeness.
让我们看看这些礼貌规则如何影响简单的言语活动(提供和接受饮料),以及强调一条规则优于其他规则如何成为一种文化的礼貌风格的一部分。想象一下有人来你家做客,你问:“你想喝点什么吗?”
Let’s see how these politeness rules can shape a simple speech activity (making and receiving an offer of a beverage) and how the emphasis of one rule over the others is part of a culture’s characteristic style of politeness. Imagine that someone comes to visit you in your home, and you ask, Would you like something to drink?
这些回答可能有很多变化,每个变化都代表了三种礼貌规则的略微不同的平衡。例如,一个好朋友可能不会等你主动提出,而是可能会问,我真的很渴。你有什么喝的吗?这会表现出更多的友情。在某些文化中,一个非常亲密的朋友或家庭成员可能会直接走到你的冰箱前,不问一声就拿走一瓶健怡可乐——这是一种更强烈的友情表达。
Many variations on these replies are possible, each representing slightly different balancings of the three politeness rules. For example, a good friend might not wait for you to offer but might ask, I’m really thirsty. Have you got anything to drink? That would evince even more camaraderie. In some cultures, a very close friend or family member might go right to your refrigerator and take a Diet Coke without asking – an even stronger expression of camaraderie.
语言提供了许多方法来协商简单的饮料邀约。但是,关于如何正确进行这种交流的假设和习惯因文化而异。当人们学习一门新语言时,他们通常用它来表达他们用母语会说的话,这可能会给人留下与在家乡文化中截然不同的印象。例如,在希腊(以及世界许多其他地区),第一次接受食物或饮料被认为是不礼貌的。即使是第二次邀约通常也会被拒绝。只有第三次邀约才适合接受。然而,在美国,人们通常会接受第一次邀约,因此第一次邀约的拒绝是字面意思,第二次和第三次邀约可能永远不会被接受。许多到美国旅游的人因为这些礼貌规则的不同应用而挨饿或口渴!他们应用的是规则 1,“不要强加于人”,而美国人的期望是规则 3,“保持友情”。在所有情况下,目的都是技术意义上的礼貌:尊重人类需要以显示友情并避免强加于人。口渴时说“不,谢谢”并直接走向冰箱都是技术意义上的礼貌。但是,当互动参与者应用不同的礼貌规范时,每个人都可能认为对方不礼貌(在日常意义上)。期待规则 1“不要强加于人”的人会认为要求饮料的访客不礼貌,但同样,期待规则 3“保持友情”的人可能会认为拒绝接受饮料的访客冷漠且不友好。
Language provides many ways of negotiating a simple offer of a drink. But assumptions and habits about the right way to conduct this exchange vary across cultures. When people learn a new language, they usually use it to say what they would say in their native language, and this could make a very different impression than it would in their home culture. For example, in Greece (and in many other parts of the world) it is considered rude to accept food or drink the first time it is offered. Even a second offer is typically deflected. Only on the third offer is it appropriate to accept. In the United States, however, it is typical to accept on the first offer, so the decline of a first offer is taken literally, and second and third offers may never be made. Many a visitor to the US has gone hungry or thirsty because of these different applications of the politeness rules! They are applying Rule 1, “Don’t impose,” whereas the American expectation is Rule 3, “Maintain camaraderie.” In all cases, the goal is politeness in the technical sense: ways of honoring human needs to display camaraderie and to avoid imposing. Saying No thanks when you are thirsty and heading straight for the refrigerator are both ways of being polite in this technical sense. However, when the participants in an interaction apply differing politeness norms, each may judge the other impolite (in the everyday sense). Someone who expects Rule 1, “Don’t impose,” will judge a visitor who asks for a drink to be impolite, but by the same token, someone who expects Rule 3, “Maintain camaraderie,” may judge a visitor who refuses to accept an offer of a drink to be cold and unfriendly.
在同一个国家长大、说同一种语言并不一定意味着两个说话者在同一种“文化”中长大。在美国不同地区长大、具有不同种族或阶级背景的美国人,对于如何使用语言实现社交目标也有不同的习惯和期望,因此,一个说话者可能会做或说一些本意是友好的事(规则 3),而另一个说话者会认为这是粗鲁的行为(违反规则 1)。例如,希腊背景的美国人可能认为只有在多次提供食物后才会接受食物——而东欧背景的美国人会对此感到反感,因为东欧背景的美国人认为从好朋友那里拿食物是一种温暖的亲密友谊的表示。冰箱。
Growing up in the same country and speaking the same language does not necessarily mean two speakers have grown up in the same “culture.” Americans who grow up in different parts of the country, or have different ethnic or class backgrounds, also have different habits and expectations about how to use language to accomplish social goals, with the result that one speaker could do or say something intended to be friendly (Rule 3) that another interprets as rude (a violation of Rule 1). For example, Americans of Greek background may expect that food will be accepted only after several offers – and be put off by Americans of East European background who think it is a heart-warming gesture of close friendship to help themselves from a good friend’s refrigerator.
Thomas Kochman ( 1981 ) 指出了文化差异倾向于区分美国白人的风格和非裔美国人。例如,他观察到大多数白人倾向于将言语攻击视为威胁,而许多黑人则将其视为参与的标志。他举了一个例子,在一次大学教师和社区代表之间的对抗会议中。有一次,一位黑人男教员用手指着一位白人女同事,愤怒地指责道:“___教授,你需要知道一件事。你不能把我变成你的形象。你明白吗?你不能把我变成你的形象。”当他看到那位女士看起来很害怕时,他向她保证,“你不必担心;我还在说话。当我停止说话时,你可能需要担心。”科赫曼继续说:
Thomas Kochman (1981) identifies cultural differences that tend to distinguish the styles of American whites and African Americans. For example, he observes that most whites tend to regard verbal aggressiveness as threatening, whereas many blacks value it as a sign of engagement. He gives an example of a confrontational meeting that took place between university faculty and community representatives. At one point, a black male faculty member pointed a finger at a white female colleague and angrily accused, “Professor___, you need to know something. You can’t make me over into your image. Do you understand that? You can’t make me over into your image.” When he saw that the woman appeared frightened, he assured her, “You don’t need to worry; I’m still talking. When I stop talking, then you might need to worry.” Kochman goes on:
会议结束后,她指责那位黑人教员“威胁”了她。他对她的指控感到震惊。他事后对我说:“我所做的就是和她说话。这怎么能算威胁呢?”
(第 44 页)
When the meeting was over, she accused the black faculty member of having “threatened” her. He was astonished by her accusation. His comment to me afterward was, “All I did was talk to her. Now how can that be threatening?”
(p. 44)
科赫曼解释说,白人往往认为“打架”在暴力即将发生时就开始了,他们可能从言语表达的愤怒程度和侮辱的言语中得到这种印象。相比之下,黑人不认为打架已经开始,直到有人做出挑衅的动作。因此,白人可能会试图通过减少口头争论来防止打架,而黑人“认为当人们不相互交流时,暴力的危险比他们相互交流时更大,无论他们的争论变得多么大声、愤怒或辱骂”(第 58 页)。
Kochman explains that whites tend to regard “fighting” as having begun as soon as violence seems imminent, an impression they may get from the intensity of anger expressed verbally and the use of insults. In contrast, blacks do not deem a fight to have begun until someone makes a provocative movement. As a result, whites may try to prevent a fight by curtailing verbal disputes, whereas blacks “conceive the danger of violence as greater when people are not communicating with each other than when they are, no matter how loud, angry, or abusive their arguments may become” (p. 58).
在我自己的著作(Tannen [ 1984 ] 2005)中,我将框架和礼貌现象的概念结合起来,描述了不同背景的美国人如何使用语言,以及这些差异如何导致问题。融洽关系的前两条规则“不要强加于人”和“给予选择”密切相关,都是为了满足人们独立的需求——即不被强加于人。融洽关系的第三条规则“保持友爱”满足了人们参与的需求——即与他人建立联系。任何两个人对于关注哪个目标以及如何使用语言来实现目标都有不同的想法。在我们开头的美国学生在德国的例子中,发起激烈的政治辩论的德国学生注重表现出参与的需要,使用“高参与度”的对话风格。拒绝谈论政治或宗教的美国学生注重避免强加于人,使用“高体贴度”的风格。
In my own work (Tannen [1984] 2005), I have combined the concepts of framing and of politeness phenomena to describe how Americans of different backgrounds use language, and how these differences lead to problems. The first two Rules of Rapport, “Don’t impose” and “Give options,” are closely related, both serving people’s need for independence – that is, not to be imposed on. The third Rule of Rapport, “Maintain camaraderie,” serves the need for involvement – that is, to be connected to others. Any two people can have different ideas about which goal to focus on, and how to use language to do so. In our opening example of an American student in Germany, the German student who launches into an animated political argument is focusing on the need to show involvement, using a “high-involvement” conversational style. The American student who resists talking about politics or religion is focusing on the need to avoid imposition, using a “high-considerateness” style.
让我们看一看,本章开头讨论过的几种语言元素如何表征来自明显不同文化的说话者以及来自不同种族或地区背景的美国人所表现出的“高参与度”或“高体贴度”风格。
Let’s look at how several of the linguistic elements we discussed at the beginning of this chapter can characterize either “high-involvement” or “high-considerateness” styles among speakers who come from obviously different cultures as well as among Americans of different ethnic or regional backgrounds.
我们之前看到,所有说话者都对对话重叠(即两个(或更多)说话者同时说话)有假设和期望。避免重叠尊重了不被强加于人的需求,因此它与“高体贴”风格相关。接受重叠作为热情和兴趣的表现尊重了联系的需求,因此它属于“高参与度”风格的一部分。这两种风格在对对话重叠有相同假设的说话者中都很有效。高参与度的说话者喜欢互相交谈,当他们想要发言时,他们可以轻松地获得或保持发言权,并在别人说话时说出他们想说的话。高体贴度说话者之间的对话也是如此:他们轮流说他们想说的话。但是当使用这两种风格的说话者互动时,他们对彼此的印象可能与每个人的意图相反。高参与度的说话者可能会插话以显示他们的热情,但高体贴度的说话者倾向于认为任何在他们说完之前开始说话的人都是在试图打断他们。他们可能会为了避免不愉快和不可接受的局面而停止发言,虽然放弃了发言权,但对打断感到不满。等待发言的高体贴性演讲者可能很少有机会加入谈话,给人留下他们不感兴趣的印象。
We saw earlier that all speakers have assumptions and expectations about conversational overlap, that is, two (or more) speakers talking at once. Avoiding overlap honors the need not to be imposed on, so it is associated with a “high-considerateness” style. Embracing overlap as a show of enthusiasm and interest honors the need to be connected, so it is part of a “high-involvement” style. Both styles can work well among speakers who share assumptions about conversational overlap. High-involvement speakers enjoy talking over each other and have no trouble getting or keeping the floor when they want it and saying what they want to say while someone else talks along. The same is true for conversations among high-considerateness speakers: they take turns and get to say what they want. But when speakers using the two styles interact, their impressions of each other may be the opposite of what each intends. High-involvement speakers might chime in to show their enthusiasm, but high-considerateness speakers tend to think that anyone who begins talking before they are finished is trying to interrupt them. They will probably stop speaking in order to avoid an unpleasant and unacceptable situation, yielding the floor but resenting the interruption. High-considerateness speakers who wait for their turn at talk may find few opportunities to join the conversation and give the impression that they are not interested.
这正是居住在巴黎的美国女性与法国女性交谈时发生的事情,在一项由莫莉·维兰德 (Molly Wieland) ( 1991 )。维兰德录制了四次不同的晚宴,参加晚宴的有法国本土女性和在法国居住了至少两年的美国人。这些美国女性都能说一口流利的法语,但当她们参与对话时,她们会运用美国规范的轮流发言和重叠发言。美国女性认为一次只能听到一个人的声音,所以当两个美国女性的谈话重叠时,其中一个会很快让位给另一个。相比之下,法国女性经常会互相重叠发言,两个发言者都会继续讲话,直到她们说完为止。每个人都认为对方的重叠发言是支持和合作的。由于她们对重叠的态度不同,每当法国和美国女性同时开始发言时,几乎总是美国人让位,她们经常认为法国女性打断发言很不礼貌。此外,法国女性经常会和另一位发言者一起讲话,以此来表达自己的观点,而美国人则等待轮到自己发言。结果,美国女性很难插话。法国妇女告诉维兰德,当美国妇女默默地(从美国人的角度来看,是专心地)听她们说话时,她们感觉美国妇女不感兴趣并且在想着其他事情。
This is just what happened when American women living in Paris spoke to French women, in a study conducted by Molly Wieland (1991). Wieland tape-recorded four separate dinner parties attended by native French women and Americans who had lived in France for at least two years. The American women all spoke French fluently, but when they took part in the conversations, they applied their American norms for turn-taking and overlap. The American women believed that only one voice should be heard at a time, so when two American women’s talk overlapped, one quickly gave way to the other. In contrast, the French women frequently overlapped each other, with both speakers continuing to talk until they had finished what they had to say. Each regarded the other’s overlap as supportive and cooperative. Because of their different attitudes toward overlap, whenever a French and American woman started to speak at the same time, it was almost always the American who gave way, and they frequently regarded the French women as rude for interrupting. Furthermore, the French women frequently talked along with another speaker as a way to contribute, while the Americans awaited their turn. As a result, the American women had a hard time getting a word in edgewise. The French women told Wieland that they got the impression the American women were uninterested and thinking of other things when they listened silently (and from the American point of view, attentively).
并非所有美国人都具有抗重叠的说话风格,正如我自己的研究(Tannen [ 1984 ] 2005)所表明的那样。我录下了感恩节晚餐的对话,除了我之外,还有四位美国人和一位英国女士。在记录了整个对话并分析了记录稿后,我发现三位在纽约市长大的发言者(我是其中之一)倾向于与其他人一起讲话以显示热情;对我们来说,重叠是一种合作。相比之下,两位来自南加州的发言者和那位英国女士倾向于在别人开始讲话时停止讲话;他们把重叠解释为打断。(对重叠的不同假设是一系列语言特征的一部分,这些特征将纽约人的风格区分为高度参与,而其他人的风格则区分为高度体贴。)
Not all Americans share an overlap-resistant style of speaking, as my own research (Tannen [1984] 2005) indicates. I tape-recorded a Thanksgiving dinner conversation which included, in addition to me, four other Americans and one British woman. After transcribing the entire conversation and analyzing the transcript, I found that the three speakers who had grown up in New York City (I was one) tended to talk along with others to show enthusiasm; for us, overlap was cooperative. In contrast, the two speakers from southern California and the British woman tended to stop speaking when someone else started; they interpreted overlap as interruption. (Differing assumptions about overlap were part of an array of linguistic features that distinguished the New Yorkers’ style as high-involvement and the others’ style as high-considerateness.)
当说话者以不同的方式使用重叠部分并理解重叠部分时,他们之间的对话可能会产生意想不到的结果。在我分析的对话中,纽约人的重叠部分只被加利福尼亚人和英国人理解为打断。当纽约人与加利福尼亚人重叠时,加利福尼亚人通常会犹豫或停止说话,对话变得断断续续、尴尬不已。当纽约人与其他纽约人重叠时,随声附和会产生相反的效果;它使对话顺畅,而不是让对话变得僵硬。停止。
When speakers use – and interpret – overlap differently, conversations between them can have unintended outcomes. In the conversation I analyzed, the New Yorkers’ overlaps were interpreted as interruption only by the Californians and the British speaker. When a New Yorker overlapped with a Californian, the Californian usually hesitated or stopped speaking, and the conversation became halting and awkward. When New Yorkers overlapped other New Yorkers, talking-along had the opposite effect; it greased the conversational wheels rather than causing them to grind to a halt.
此类跨文化误解并非由任何个人的谈话风格所致,而是由参与者不同风格的互动所致。纽约人的重叠习惯只有在与抗重叠说话者互动时才会显得具有干扰性。然而,跨文化差异的双向性通常会让参与者在对话中感到困惑。如果一个说话者因为另一个人开始说话而停止说话,他不太可能会想:“我想我们对合作重叠的态度不同。”相反,这样的说话者可能会想:“你对听我要说的话不感兴趣”,甚至会想:“你是个只想听自己说话的粗鲁之人。”而合作重叠者可能会得出这样的结论:“你很不友好,让我在这里做所有的谈话工作”,甚至会想:“你是个无聊的人,没有什么可说的。”说。”
Crosscultural misunderstandings like these are not the result of any individual’s conversational style; rather, such misunderstandings result from the interaction of participants’ differing styles. New Yorkers’ overlapping habits appeared interruptive only when they interacted with overlap-resistant speakers. However, the two-way nature of crosscultural differences typically eludes participants in the throes of conversation. A speaker who stops talking because another has begun is unlikely to think, “I guess we have different attitudes toward cooperative overlap.” Instead, such a speaker will probably think, “You are not interested in hearing what I have to say,” or even “You are a boor who only wants to hear yourself talk.” And the cooperative overlapper is probably concluding, “You are unfriendly and are making me do all the conversational work here” or even “You are a bore who has nothing to say.”
在许多文化中,人们都记录到重叠是表达热情倾听的一种方式,包括德国(Straehle 1997)、安提瓜(Reisman 1974)和日本(Hayashi 1988),尽管重叠的形式和频率并不总是相同的。语言学家将说话者用来表达他们正在倾听的言语称为反向通道提示。在日本,据日本语言学家称Haru Yamada 表示,听众通常会提供非常频繁的反向信道提示,称为aizuchi,通常伴随着有节奏的点头。在日本和美国长大的 Yamada 有外部证据表明aizuchi在日语中比在英语中更常见。她的一位朋友告诉她,他总是能从远处分辨出她说的是英语还是日语,因为当她说英语时,她偶尔会点头,但当她说日语时,她的头会不断地上下摆动。aizuchi 的范围可以从重复一个单词hai(功能类似于英语表达mhm和uhuh ),到整个句子,例如Nn, Nn, Nn, tashika ni soo desu yo ne,Yamada ( 1997 : 97) 将其翻译为“是的,是的,是的,完全正确”。这种明显的同意只意味着“我在听,我在跟进”,而不是“我同意”,但美国人经常从字面上理解这些表示注意的表达,如果发现他们的日本对话者实际上没有这样做,他们会感到被误导同意。
The tendency to overlap as a way of showing enthusiastic listenership has been documented for speakers in many cultures, including Germany (Straehle 1997), Antigua (Reisman 1974), and Japan (Hayashi 1988), though the forms of overlap and their frequency are not always the same. Linguists call the verbalizations speakers make to show that they’re listening back-channel cues. In Japan, according to Japanese linguist Haru Yamada, listeners typically provide very frequent back-channel cues, called aizuchi, that are typically accompanied by rhythmic head nods. Yamada, who grew up in both Japan and the United States, had external evidence that aizuchi is more frequent in Japanese than it is in English. A friend told her that he can always tell from a distance whether she is speaking English or Japanese, because when she speaks English, she nods occasionally, but when she’s speaking Japanese, her head jerks up and down constantly. Aizuchi may range from the repetition of a single word hai, which functions rather like the English expressions mhm and uhuh, to entire sentences, such as Nn, Nn, Nn, tashika ni soo desu yo ne, which Yamada (1997: 97) translates as ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right.’ This apparent agreement means only ‘I’m listening and I’m following,’ not ‘I agree,’ but Americans often take these expressions of attention literally and feel misled if it turns out that their Japanese interlocutor does not in fact agree.
由于反向信道提示的不同使用方式而产生的误解也可能发生在具有不同使用规范的美国人之间。例如,记录跨性别对话的研究人员(Fishman 1978、Hirschman 1994)发现,女性在对话伙伴的谈话过程中倾向于频繁说“嗯”、“嗯”和“是的”,而男性通常提供较少的反向信道提示,并且更有可能只在轮到别人说话时才提供。尤其成问题的是这些反向信道提示的不同使用方式:女性通常用它们来表示“我在听”,而对于男性来说,它们往往意味着“我同意”。因此,就像美国人和日本人一样,当一个女人(从男人的角度来看)表示同意他所说的话,然后却不同意时,美国男人可能会感到被误导了。在这里,结果也会导致对另一个群体的负面刻板印象:你不能相信女人;当你和他们交谈时,你不知道自己处于什么位置。同时,缺乏来自男性的后援渠道也让女性产生男性不听她们说话的印象。
Misunderstandings resulting from different uses of back-channel cues can also occur among Americans who have different norms for their use. For example, researchers who recorded cross-sex conversations (Fishman 1978, Hirschman 1994) discovered that women tend to say mhm, uhuh, and yeah frequently during a conversational partner’s stream of talk, whereas men typically offer fewer back-channel cues and are more likely to offer them only at the end of another’s turn. Especially problematic are the different ways these back-channel cues tend to be used: women typically use them to indicate ‘I’m listening,’ whereas for men they tend to mean ‘I agree.’ As a result, just as with Americans and Japanese, an American man might feel misled when a woman has (from the man’s point of view) indicated agreement with what he was saying, and then turns out to disagree. Here too, the result can lead to negative stereotypes of the other group: you can’t trust women; when you talk to them, you don’t know where you stand. At the same time, the lack of back channels from men helps give women the impression that men are not listening to them.
不同背景的美国人对听众的反应应该有多大、多有表现力也有不同的期望。我研究中的纽约人经常用富有表现力的反应来表示对别人评论的赞赏,比如哇!或太不可思议了!这常常让非纽约人觉得他们反应过度,甚至怀疑他们所听到的内容的真实性。类似的困惑——对听众反应应该有多极端的不同期望——给一位在纽约市长大但在佛蒙特州抚养孩子的女人带来了麻烦。当她的女儿们放学回家,告诉妈妈白天发生的事情时,她们的母亲可能会惊呼哇!或天哪!女儿们会环顾四周,看看是什么吓坏了她们的母亲。当她们意识到她只是对她们所说的话做出反应时,她们指责她反应过度。他们没有意识到母亲的反应是他们母亲成长过程中所学到的高度参与风格的标准热情回应,他们以为自己看到的是她性格中的一种怪癖(如果不是病态的话!)。
Americans of different backgrounds can also have divergent expectations about how loud and expressive a listener response should be. The New Yorkers in my study often showed appreciation of another’s comment with expressive reactions such as Wow! or That’s incredible! This often gave the non-New Yorkers the impression that they were overreacting to, or even doubting the veracity of, what they had heard. Similar confusion – from different expectations regarding how extreme listener reactions should be – caused trouble for a woman who grew up in New York City but raised her own children in Vermont. When her daughters came home from school and told their mother about something that had happened during the day, their mother might exclaim Wow! or Oh-my-god! The daughters would look around to see what had frightened their mother. When they realized that she was simply reacting to what they had said, they accused her of overreacting. Not realizing that their mother’s reaction was a standard enthusiastic response in the high-involvement style their mother had learned growing up, they thought they were witnessing a quirk (if not a pathology!) of her personality.
在这一过程中,就像在所有跨风格相遇中一样,重要的始终是相对差异,而不是绝对风格。对一个听众来说过于极端的热情程度,对另一个听众来说可能显得过于低调。同样一个女人,如果认为一个男人没有在听,因为他提供的反向通道线索比她预期的要少,那么她可能会觉得一个日本人是在催促她,因为他提供的反向通道线索比她预期的要多。任何时候,对反向通道线索的期望不同,说话者可能会留下错误的印象——对方是否同意,对方是否感兴趣或不感兴趣。甚至在听。
In this, as in all cross-style encounters, it is always the relative difference that matters, not absolute style. The level of enthusiasm that seems too extreme to one listener may seem too understated to another. The same woman who thinks a man is not listening because he provides fewer back-channel cues than she expects, may feel that a Japanese speaker is rushing her along, because he is providing more back-channel cues than she expects. Any time expectations regarding back-channel cues differ, speakers can come away with the wrong impression – of whether the other person agrees or not and of whether the other person was interested or even listening.
重叠和听众反应以及速率说话和停顿的重叠,共同完成对话中的轮换。那些认为重叠是表达那些因为长时间的停顿会让他们觉得谈话正在失败而避免重叠的人通常会在轮次之间留出较短的停顿,也许是为了确保前一位发言者不会被无意中打断。每当两位发言者对轮次之间的停顿长度有不同的看法时,期望较长停顿的发言者就很难获得发言权,因为较短停顿的人很可能在较长停顿的人仍在等待适当的停顿时开始发言。这正是我分析的感恩节晚餐对话中发生的情况。加利福尼亚人很少在纽约人讲话时开始讲话,如果纽约人重叠,他们通常会停止讲话。纽约人希望在对话轮次之间留出较短的停顿,因此经常在加利福尼亚人有机会开始讲话之前就要求发言。
Overlap and listener response, along with rate of speech and pausing, work together to accomplish the exchange of turns in a conversation. Those who value overlap as a show of involvement often leave shorter pauses between turns, perhaps because long pauses would give them the impression that the conversation is foundering. Those who avoid overlap because it seems intrusive often leave longer pauses between turns, perhaps to be certain that the previous speaker won’t be inadvertently interrupted. Whenever two speakers have differing senses of how long a pause between turns should be, the speaker who expects longer pauses has a hard time getting the floor, because the shorter-pauser is likely to begin speaking while the longer-pauser is still waiting for the right amount of pause. This is exactly what happened in the Thanksgiving dinner conversation that I analyzed. The Californians rarely started speaking when a New Yorker was speaking, and often stopped speaking if a New Yorker overlapped. The New Yorkers expected shorter pauses between conversational turns and therefore frequently claimed the floor before the Californians had a chance to start talking.
以下是一个例子(Tannen [ 1984 ] 2005: 93),三个纽约人友好地交谈,互相重叠,没有打断对方的话。史蒂夫试图解释一座大楼的确切位置,里面有一个呼号为 WINS 的广播电台。另外两位发言者是史蒂夫的兄弟彼得和他最好的朋友黛博拉(就是我)。左括号表示重叠。
Here’s an example (Tannen [1984] 2005: 93) of the three New Yorkers talking companionably, overlapping each other’s talk without interrupting. Steve was trying to explain the precise location of a building that housed a radio station with the call letters WINS. The two other speakers are Steve’s brother Peter and his best friend, Deborah (that’s me). Left brackets indicate overlap.
从括号和对话行的位置可以看出,两个人在这一片段的大部分时间里同时说话,并且没有迹象表明重叠部分会惹恼或干扰说话者。在第 5 至 7 行中,三个人同时说话:史蒂夫正在描述他心目中的建筑:第 5 行那栋建筑的形状是那样的。 (他用手比了个金字塔来说明这个形状。)彼得在上火鸡:第 6 行我给你的太多了吗?我在建议史蒂夫描述的位置:第 7 行哥伦布圆环附近?我的评论并没有让史蒂夫停下来或放慢速度,所以他在第 8 行哥伦布圆环正上方的批准与我的重叠部分重叠。当史蒂夫继续他的描述时:这里是哥伦布圆环,这里是中央公园西,我重叠地提供了另一个关于位置的猜测:第 9 行现在是亨廷顿哈特福德博物馆。
As you can see from the brackets and the placement of the lines of dialogue, two people were speaking at once for much of this segment, and there is no indication that the overlaps annoy or interfere with the speakers. In lines 5–7, all three were speaking at the same time: Steve was describing the building he had in mind: line 5 That building shaped like that. (He made a pyramid with his hands to illustrate the shape.) Peter was serving turkey: line 6 Did I give you too much? I was suggesting the location Steve was describing: line 7 By Columbus Circle? My comment did not cause Steve to stop or slow down, so his ratification in line 8 Right on Columbus Circle overlapped with my overlap. As Steve continued his description: Here’s Columbus Circle, here’s Central Park West, I overlapped to offer another guess about the location: line 9 Now it’s the Huntington Hartford Museum.
下一个重叠部分是高度参与风格的一个很好的例子。在第 10 行,彼得几乎和我同时发言,给出了相同的猜测:这就是亨廷顿·哈特福德,对吧?但结果证明我们错了。史蒂夫迅速地回答了三个“不”:不。现在,想象一下在一场考试中,两个坐在一起的学生写了相同的答案。如果答案是错的,老师很可能会怀疑其中一个学生抄袭了另一个学生的答案。这正是这次谈话中发生的事情。当我把这段话放给彼得听时,他说他不知道他哥哥指的地点,但以为我知道。所以彼得搭上了我的搭档,和我同时说话,重复我说的话,只比我晚了一秒钟。因为他和我们有着同样的重叠和节奏期望,所以彼得即使不太了解我们在说什么,也能参与谈话。相比之下,其他三位晚宴客人即使有知识和想法可以贡献,也无法参与,因为他们不习惯跟着说话,很少遇到开始谈话所需的停顿请讲。
The next overlap is a particularly good example of a high-involvement style. In line 10 Peter spoke almost at the same time that I did, offering the same guess: That’s the Huntington Hartford, right? But it turned out that we were wrong. Steve replied with three No’s in quick succession: Nuhnuhno. Now, think of an exam in which two students who sat next to each other wrote the same answer. If that answer happens to be wrong, the teacher may well suspect that one copied from the other. And this is precisely what happened in this conversation. When I played the segment back to Peter, he said that he had had no idea of the location his brother was referring to, but had assumed I did. So Peter had piggybacked on my overlap, talking at the same time that I did by repeating what I said just a split second behind me. Because he shared expectations regarding overlap and pacing, Peter was thus able to participate in the conversation even when he did not have much knowledge of what we were talking about. In contrast, the other three dinner guests were not able to participate, even when they had the knowledge and ideas to contribute, because they were not comfortable talking-along and rarely encountered the pause they needed to begin speaking.
在话语分析中,分析研究人员参与的互动有着悠久的历史;它类似于人类学领域的参与观察实践。互动社会语言学家承认,分析他们自己参与的对话既有缺点也有优点。例如,如果目标是了解朋友之间的对话,那么在自然社交聚会上录音可以研究陌生人之间不会出现的语言使用模式,而且会因为外部研究人员的存在而受到抑制——例如嬉戏的惯例、讽刺和暗示,或对熟悉的笑话和假设的引用。此外,经常互动的人会在他们之间创造一种特殊的语言,这种语言在他们持续的互动中被调用和建立。了解话语的这一历史对于真正理解正在发生的事情是必要的,而且只有那些分享过这段历史的人才能做到这一点。
The practice of analyzing interactions in which the researcher participated has a long history in discourse analysis; it is similar to the practice of participant observation in the field of anthropology. Interactional sociolinguists acknowledge that there are disadvantages as well as advantages in analyzing conversations they themselves took part in. For example, if the goal is understanding conversation among friends, recording at a natural social gathering makes available for study patterns of language use that do not emerge among strangers and would be inhibited by the presence of an outside researcher – patterns such as playful routines, irony and allusion, or reference to familiar jokes and assumptions. Furthermore, people who regularly interact with each other create a special language between and among themselves, a language that is called upon and built upon in their continuing interactions. Awareness of this history of the discourse is necessary to truly understand what is going on, and is available only to those who have shared in that history.
分析人员的参与与互动社会语言学的另一个方面有关。难免有人会提出异议:“你怎么知道这是真正发生的事情?这只是你的解释。”对此,互动社会语言学家回答说:“没错。”互动社会语言学是一门解释学学科;在这个范式中的所有分析本质上都是解释性的。但是,与文学分析和心理学等领域的解释一样,提出的任何解释都是众多解释中的一种,而不是最终的解释。此外,解释基于内部和外部证据。由于所有解释都具有主观性,因此承认和纠正主观性最终比假设不可能的客观性危险性要小。解决主观性危险的另一种方法是回放。将确定用于分析的互动片段回放给参与者(以及其他人),并引出他们的解释——他们的意思和理解。这些评论不能只看表面,而应该提供进一步的分析材料,并可能纠正分析师的解释。
Analyst participation is related to another aspect of interactional sociolinguistics. The objection is inevitably raised, “How do you know this is what is really going on? It is just your interpretation.” To this the interactional sociolinguist replies, “That’s right.” Interactional sociolinguistics is a hermeneutic discipline; all analysis in this paradigm is essentially interpretive. But, as with interpretation in such fields as literary analysis and psychology, any interpretation posed is offered as one among many, not a definitive one. Furthermore, interpretations are based on internal and external evidence. Since all interpretation has a subjective character, acknowledging and correcting for subjectivity is, in the end, less dangerous than assuming an impossible objectivity. Another way of addressing the danger of subjectivity is playback. Segments of the interaction that are identified for analysis are played back to those who participated (as well as to others), and their interpretations – of what they meant and understood – are elicited. Such comments are not taken at face value, but offer further material for analysis as well as a potential corrective to the analyst’s interpretations.
为分析而录制对话还存在最后一个悖论:研究人员既要收集自然数据,又要确保参与者知情同意。只要参与者知道录音机的存在,他们的谈话就可能不是完全自然的。然而,社会语言学家认为,如果有相当多的参与者有持续的社会关系,他们很快就会忘记录音机的存在。但如果他们忘记了自己被录音了,他们的同意是否就被取消了?在我自己的工作中,我纠正了这个问题,允许参与者在我计划写的内容付印之前看到,以确保我不会无意中泄露他们希望保密的任何生活方面。
There is a final paradox inherent in recording conversation for analysis; the researcher is committed both to collecting natural data and to securing the informed consent of participants. So long as participants are aware of the presence of the tape recorder, their talk may not be completely natural. Sociolinguists argue, however, that if there is a relatively large number of participants who have ongoing social relationships, they soon forget the tape recorder. But if they forgot they were being taped, was their consent not effectively canceled? In my own work, I correct for this by allowing participants to see what I plan to write about them before it goes into print, to make sure that I do not inadvertently expose any aspect of their lives that they would prefer to keep private.
除了语速和轮流发言之外,高参与度风格还包括提问习惯——何时提问、提问多少次、提问速度如何、提问的内容是什么——这些都与高体贴度风格演讲者不同。感恩节晚餐对话中的纽约人问的问题更多,而且他们提出的问题往往来得很快,音调明显很高,一个接一个。这些问题可能会让加利福尼亚人和英国女人措手不及,阻碍他们流畅的讲话,甚至让他们感到困惑。对于这些高参与度演讲者来说,提问表明他们在热情地倾听,演讲者没有义务在半句中停下来回答问题——甚至根本没有义务回答问题。
Along with rate of speech and turn-taking, a high-involvement style includes habits regarding asking questions – when, how many, how quickly, what about – that differ from those of high-considerateness style speakers. The New Yorkers in the Thanksgiving dinner conversation asked more questions, and the questions they asked often came quickly, with marked high pitch, one after another. These questions could catch the Californians and the British woman off guard, impeding their flow of speech and even puzzling them. For these high-involvement speakers, questions indicate enthusiastic listening, and speakers are not obligated to stop mid-sentence to answer them – nor even to answer them at all.
例如,史蒂夫讲述了他和彼得小时候住在拱形活动房里的经历,当时他们的父亲在二战期间从军队服役归来。(拱形活动房是政府为安置众多归来的退伍军人而建造的一种临时住房。)当这个片段开始时,史蒂夫刚刚评论说拱形活动房里有老鼠。
For example, Steve was telling about having lived in Quonset huts when he and Peter were children, after their father returned from military service in the Second World War. (Quonset huts were a form of temporary housing that the government had constructed to accommodate the many returning veterans.) When this segment begins, Steve had just commented that there were rats in the Quonset huts.
我的第一个问题(第 2 行)它在哪里。你的在哪里?与史蒂夫在第 1 行的解释重叠,史蒂夫说拱形活动房里有老鼠,因为附近有沼泽。他在第 3 行回答了我的问题“在布朗克斯”,彼得也回答了,再次重叠:第 4 行在布朗克斯。在东布朗克斯?但我的第二个问题,第 5 行你在那里住了多久?从来没有得到史蒂夫的回答,他只是继续解释拱形活动房的位置:第 6 行现在有一座很大的合作建筑。(彼得在第 7 行重叠史蒂夫回答我的问题:三年。)高参与度习惯在重叠和提问方面发挥了作用。这个例子表明,高参与度提问者之所以能够兴高采烈地提出问题,部分原因是高参与度演讲者没有义务停下他正在说的话来回答这些问题。
My first question (line 2) Where was it. Where were yours? overlapped Steve’s explanation in line 1 that the Quonset huts had rats because there were swamps nearby. He answered my question in line 3 In the Bronx, and Peter answered as well, again overlapping: line 4 In the Bronx. In the East Bronx? But my second question, line 5 How long did you live in it? never got an answer from Steve, who simply went on with his explanation of where the Quonset huts were located: line 6 Now there’s a big cooperative building. (Peter overlapped Steve to answer my question in line 7: Three years.) The high-involvement habits regarding overlap and questions worked together. This example shows that part of the reason a high-involvement questioner can throw out questions exuberantly is that a high-involvement speaker is under no obligation to stop what he’s saying and answer them.
对话风格的另一个重要元素是间接性——无需明确表达即可传达含义。我们不可能在每句话中都表达出我们想要表达的一切。有些含义必须始终基于过去的经验“从字里行间读出”。对话和对将要说的内容的期望,以及与特定表达方式相关的文化共识意义。文化在期望间接表达的程度、期望间接表达的时间以及采用何种形式方面存在差异。例如,去日本旅游的美国人,即使是那些日语说得很好的人,也会发现很难理解日语使用者的意思,因为日本文化非常重视间接性。山田春解释说,日语中有一个词叫sasshi,用来表示人们期望和重视的猜测,听众通过猜测来补充未说明的意思。她举了一个例子(1997:37-38),这是两位日本银行高管五十石和前田之间的对话。五十石询问前田对一项提议的看法,前田回答说“Sore wa chotto ......”(“这有点......”)。他没有再说什么,但五十石明白前田不赞成这项提议,于是他在另一个场合把同样的话告诉了另一位同事(甚至推断出前田不赞成的原因)。
Another important element of conversational style is indirectness – conveying meaning without saying it explicitly. It is not possible to articulate everything we mean in every utterance. Some of the meaning must always be “read between the lines,” based on past conversations and expectations about what will be said, and from culturally agreed-upon meanings that are associated with particular expressions. Cultures differ in how much indirectness is expected, when it is expected, and what form it will take. For example, Americans who travel to Japan, even those who speak Japanese well, find it difficult to interpret what Japanese speakers mean, because Japanese culture places great value on indirectness. Haru Yamada explains that the Japanese have a word, sasshi, for the guesswork that is expected and valued, by which listeners fill in unstated meaning. She gives an example (1997: 37–38) from a conversation between two Japanese bank executives, Igarishi and Maeda. Igarishi asks Maeda’s opinion about a proposal, and Maeda responds, Sore wa chotto … (‘That’s a little …’). He says no more, but Igarishi understands that Maeda does not approve of the proposal, and he tells another colleague as much on another occasion (and even infers why Maeda disapproves).
尽管这种程度的间接性比美国对话中通常出现的更为极端,但我们所有人在对话中都会使用间接性形式。例如,两个美国大学室友因为第三个室友习惯性地将脏盘子留在水槽中而感到沮丧。这两个爱整洁的人不愿意直接告诉她应该洗碗,而是挂了个牌子说“我们喜欢干净的水槽”。在另一个案例中,一名学生对她的一名室友习惯性地将吹风机留在浴室感到恼火。她没有告诉室友请将吹风机放在自己的房间里,而是问“那是你的吹风机吗?”在这两个例子中,间接沟通都是有效的:脏盘子从厨房水槽中消失了,吹风机从浴室中消失了。这些间接请求尊重了室友不想被强加的需要(即使在强加给他们的同时)。
Although this level of indirectness is more extreme than is typically found in American conversations, we all use forms of indirectness in conversation. For example, two American college roommates were frustrated by a third who habitually left her dirty dishes in the sink. Reluctant to tell her outright that she should wash her dishes, the two neatniks put up a sign, We love a clean sink. In another case, a student was annoyed that one of her roommates habitually left her hair dryer in the bathroom. Rather than telling her to please keep her hair dryer in her room, she asked, Is that your hair dryer? In both instances the indirect communications were effective: the dirty dishes disappeared from the kitchen sink, and the hair dryer disappeared from the bathroom. These indirect requests honored the roommates’ need not to be imposed on (even while imposing on them).
年轻女子 Jen 知道,在她需要写论文的晚上,她的室友计划举办一个聚会。那天到了,Jen 发现自己走在一位室友旁边,于是她问她:“你今晚要做什么?”室友回答说:“我不确定。我们想举办一个聚会。你在做什么?”Jen 说她第二天要写论文。“哦,那样的话我们就不举办聚会了,”她的室友说。Jen 说没关系,但室友重复说他们绝对不会举办,这次 Jen 没有抗议。间接的方式可以很好地解决这个问题。Jen 没有提出看似自私的直接要求,而是让室友了解情况,并自行决定体谅室友。如果室友真的相信 Jen 保证可以举办聚会,那么间接的方式就失败了。在这种情况下,Jen 最好直接表达自己的偏好。
A young woman, Jen, knew that her roommates planned a party on a night she needed to be writing a paper. When the day came, Jen found herself walking beside one of her roommates, whom she asked, “What are you doing tonight?” Her roommate replied, “I’m not sure. We were thinking of having a party. What are you up to?” Jen said she had a paper due the next day. “Oh, in that case we won’t have a party,” her roommate said. Jen said it would be fine but the roommate repeated that they definitely wouldn’t, and that time Jen didn’t protest. Indirectness worked well to solve this problem. Rather than making a direct demand that would seem selfish, Jen let her roommate know the situation and decide on her own to be considerate. Had her roommate taken literally Jen’s assurance that it would be fine to have a party, then indirectness would have failed. In that case, Jen would have done better to state her preference directly.
您能否想起在您进行过的对话中,间接性是成功还是失败,或者对间接性的不同假设导致了误解或伤害感情?
Can you think of conversations you’ve had in which indirectness either succeeded or failed, or different assumptions about indirectness led to misunderstanding or hurt feelings?
如果对间接用法的假设不达成一致,就会导致沟通不畅。我班上一个叫斯科特的年轻人就遇到过这种情况。寒假在家时,斯科特和母亲坐在厨房餐桌旁。他的母亲望着窗外,说着昨晚下了多少雪,要花多长时间才能铲掉。斯科特表示同意,然后吃完早餐,回到房间看电视。后来,他的母亲生气地责备了他她忙着打扫房子时,斯科特却在外面闲逛,她还说他至少应该按照她要求的那样铲雪。斯科特很生气,因为他确信她没有要求他做任何事情,如果她要求他帮忙,他会很乐意的。两人都没有意识到,间接性的不同用法才是问题的根源。斯科特真的相信他没有被要求铲雪,因为他把母亲的观察结果按字面意思理解了。他的母亲相信她要求他铲雪,她从来没有想到他没有理解她的意思。
When assumptions regarding the use of indirectness are not shared, the result can be miscommunication. This happened to a young man in one of my classes named Scott. While at home during winter break, Scott was sitting with his mother at the kitchen table. Looking out the window, his mother remarked on how much snow had fallen during the night and how long it would take to shovel it. Scott agreed – then finished his breakfast and went to his room to watch television. Later his mother angrily chided him for lounging around while she was busy cleaning the house, and she added that the least he could have done was to shovel the snow as she had asked him to. Scott was incensed because he was certain she had not asked him to do anything, and he would have been glad to help her out if she had asked him. Neither realized that different uses of indirectness were at fault. Scott truly believed he had not been asked to shovel the snow because he had interpreted his mother’s observations literally. His mother believed she had asked him to shovel the snow, and it never occurred to her that he had missed her meaning.
对间接性的假设不同,可能会导致对不诚实或操纵的指责。因此,一位去日本旅行的记者问他的日本主人是否可以看到一个特定的机器人,得到的答案是“有可能”。他非常乐观地认为,如果可能的话,主人会安排的,所以当他后来发现自己不仅看不到机器人,而且根本就不可能看到时,他感到被误导了。但日本人会知道“有可能”是一种体贴而礼貌的说“不”的方式。在印度部分地区,直接要求某物被认为是不礼貌的,所以一种可接受的请求方式是赞美它。相反,如果有人称赞某件物品,他就会把它作为礼物送出去。一位嫁给印度男人的美国女人根本不知道这种文化习俗,即赞美是一种间接的请求方式。当她丈夫的母亲来美国探望时,这位美国妇女帮助婆婆拆开行李,对婆婆的纱丽和珠宝的美貌赞叹不已。婆婆后来问自己的女儿(一个也住在美国的印度人),他娶了什么样的女人?她想要一切!
Differences in assumptions about indirectness can lead to accusations of dishonesty or manipulativeness. Thus a journalist who traveled to Japan asked his Japanese host whether he could see a particular robot and was told. That might be possible. He was fairly optimistic that if it was possible, it would be arranged, so he felt misled when he later discovered not only that he could not see the robot, but that there had never been any possibility that he could. But a Japanese person would have known that That might be possible is a considerate and polite way to say No. In parts of India, it is considered rude to ask for something directly, so an accepted way of requesting something is to compliment it. Conversely, a person who receives a compliment on a possession is expected to offer it as a gift. An American woman who married an Indian man had no idea of this cultural convention by which compliments are an indirect way of making requests. When her husband’s mother came to the United States for a visit, the American woman helped her mother-in-law unpack and ooh’d and aah’d over the beauty of her saris and her jewelry. Her mother-in-law later asked her own daughter (an Indian who also lived in the United States), What kind of woman did he marry? She wants everything!
当对话参与者使用语言的规范不同时,他们往往会对对方产生负面印象。当说话者将他人视为可识别文化群体的成员时,结果往往是文化刻板印象。了解高参与风格在很大程度上有助于解释为什么纽约市本地人经常被定型为咄咄逼人和咄咄逼人。而了解高体贴风格或许可以解释为什么许多纽约人认为来自美国其他地区的美国人有些乏味和无趣。
When participants in a conversation have different norms for using language, they often come away with negative impressions of the other person. When speakers see others as members of identifiable cultural groups, the result often is cultural stereotyping. Understanding high-involvement style goes a long way toward explaining why natives of New York City are often stereotyped as pushy and aggressive. And understanding high-considerateness style might explain why many New Yorkers regard Americans from other parts of the United States as somewhat dull and uninteresting.
在世界各地,说话速度较慢的群体成员往往会被负面地定型为(当然,这是由说话速度较快的人定型的)呆板。例如,芬兰人说话速度比瑞典人慢,而且沉默的时间也更多。芬兰语言学家Jaakko Lehtonen 和 Kari Sajavaara ( 1985 ) 怀疑这种差异可能与邻国瑞典人对芬兰人的负面刻板印象有关,认为他们说话迟钝。此外,他们还怀疑这种差异可能也解释了世界其他地区的种族和地区刻板印象。他们发现,在一个又一个国家中,一个种族或地区群体往往比其他群体说话慢,刻板印象也类似:德国人对东弗里斯兰人的刻板印象,法国人对比利时人的刻板印象,以及瑞士人对伯尔尼或苏黎世居民的刻板印象也是如此。甚至芬兰人自己也把来自一个叫海梅(发音为 hah-may)的地区的更刻板的同胞定型为无趣。正如我们在约翰·甘珀兹 (John Gumperz) 对伦敦南亚人的研究中所看到的,这种负面刻板印象可能会产生重要的社会影响,影响有关教育进步、工作招聘甚至全国范围内的社会政策的决策。
Around the world, members of groups who tend to speak more slowly tend to be negatively stereotyped (by faster speakers, of course) as dull. For example, Finns tend to speak more slowly and to be silent more often than Swedes. Finnish linguists Jaakko Lehtonen and Kari Sajavaara (1985) suspected that this difference might have something to do with the negative stereotyping of Finns as slow and dull by neighboring Swedes. Moreover, they suspected that such differences might account for ethnic and regional stereotypes in other parts of the world as well. They found similar patterns of stereotyping in country after country where one ethnic or regional group tends to speak more slowly than others: in German stereotypes of East Frisians, in French stereotypes of Belgians, and in Swiss stereotypes of residents of Berne or Zurich. Even Finns themselves stereotype their more deliberate compatriots from a region called Häme (pronounced hah-may) as dull. As we saw in the work of John Gumperz with South Asian speakers in London, such negative stereotypes can have important social consequences, affecting decisions about educational advancement, job hiring, and even social policies on a national scale.
在美国,当决定做什么时,女性和男性在间接性方面往往有不同的习惯。例如,一个女人和一个男人坐在一辆汽车里。女人转过身问男人:“你渴吗?你想停下来喝点东西吗?”男人并不特别渴,所以回答“不”。后来,他很困惑地得知,女人因为他想停下来喝点东西而对他生气。他反过来也生气了,想知道她为什么不直接说出来。他认为她的问题是表达想停下来喝点东西的愿望的一种间接方式,事实可能确实如此。但还有一个更复杂、更可能的解释。当女人问“你想停下来喝点东西吗?”时,她并不期待一个是/否的答案。相反,她希望男人会这样回答:“我不知道。你想吗?”然后她可能会说:“我不知道。你想要什么?”在两人都表达了自己的意愿和喜好之后,他们可能会停下来喝一杯,也可能不会。无论哪种方式,她都会感到满意,因为这个决定是考虑到了他们两人的喜好而做出的。换句话说,她的沮丧不是因为她没有得到她想要的东西,而是因为她的问题表明她在考虑他想要的东西,而他的断然回答表明他对她想要的东西不感兴趣。
Within the United States, women and men often have different habits with regard to indirectness when it comes to deciding what to do. For example, a woman and a man were riding in a car. The woman turned to the man and asked, Are you thirsty? Would you like to stop for a drink? The man wasn’t particularly thirsty, so he answered No. Later he was perplexed to learn that she was annoyed with him because she had wanted to stop for a drink. He became annoyed in turn, wondering why she didn’t just say so. He assumed that her question was an indirect way of expressing her desire to stop for a drink, and this could have been the case. But there is a more complex – and more likely – explanation. When the woman asked, Would you like to stop for a drink? she did not expect a yes/no answer. Rather, she expected the man to respond by saying something like, I don’t know. Do you want to? She then might have said, I don’t know. What do you want? After they had both expressed their inclinations and preferences, they might or might not stop for a drink. Either way, she would feel satisfied because the decision had been made taking both their preferences into account. In other words, her frustration was not because she did not get her way, but because her question had shown that she was considering what he wanted, whereas his peremptory response indicated he was not interested in what she wanted.
通过文化习得的使用语言进行交流的惯例不仅仅是单词和话语含义的问题,也是对话礼仪的问题:你期望整个互动如何进行,你期望话语如何按顺序进行。在这次交流中,女人的问题是为了开始一段交流——这是一种对话礼仪,通过这种礼仪,一个一般性的问题会引发双方表达倾向和偏好,从而做出决定。这种礼仪的目的既是为了分享观点,也是为了做出决定。但是当男人回答“不”时,女人期望的礼仪顺序就被打断了。男人并没有对她的喜好表现出兴趣(或者更糟,他表现出对它们的不感兴趣),最重要的是,在她看来,他单方面决定他们不会停止。
Culturally learned conventions for using language to communicate are not simply a matter of the meaning of words and utterances but also a matter of conversational rituals: how you expect an interaction to go in its totality, how you expect utterances to follow in sequence. In this interchange, the woman’s question was meant to begin an exchange – a conversational ritual by which a general question leads to mutual expressions of inclinations and preferences, leading to a decision. The purpose of this ritual is as much to share perspectives as it is to come to a decision. But when the man answered No, the ritual sequence the woman expected was short-circuited. The man had not expressed an interest in her preferences (or worse, he had revealed a lack of interest in them) and, on top of that, it seemed to her that he had made a unilateral decision that they would not stop.
当然,这个男人心中有一套自己的对话仪式。根据他的自我报告,他的回答意味着他不渴,而不是说如果她想喝水,他不愿意停下来喝水。他认为如果她想停下来喝水,她会这么说,即使他说他不渴。他期望的对话仪式是,一个人提出一个可能的决定,任何有不同倾向的人都提出另一种选择。因此,他将女人随后的沉默解读为同意,而她之所以沉默是因为她很生气。
Of course, the man had a conversational ritual of his own in mind. According to his self-report, his reply meant that he wasn’t thirsty, not that he was averse to stopping for a drink if she wanted to. He assumed that if she wanted to stop for a drink, she would say so, even though he had said he was not thirsty. The conversational ritual he expects is that one person throws out a possible decision and anyone who is differently inclined states an alternative option. He therefore interpreted the woman’s subsequent silence as agreement, whereas she had become silent because she was annoyed.
类似这样的误解经常发生在男女之间。有充分的证据表明,在作出决定或表达偏好时,许多美国女性比大多数美国男性更倾向于使用间接方式。但这并不意味着美国女性总是更间接。在其他一些情况下,许多男性倾向于比女性更间接。其中一种情况就是道歉。例如,我的一个邻居曾经给我写过一张纸条,说“我想我帮不上什么忙”,因为他应该向我道歉。我认为这是一种间接道歉的方式。罗宾·莱考夫 (Robin Lakoff) ( 2001 ) 描述了她从父亲那里收到的一次间接道歉。当他寄给她一本《便携式脾气暴躁的人》时,她理解成“我只是一个脾气暴躁的老家伙,请原谅我。”
Misunderstandings like this occur frequently between women and men. There is ample evidence that many American women are more inclined than most American men to use indirectness when it comes to making a decision or expressing preferences about what to do. This doesn’t mean American women are always more indirect, however. There are other contexts in which many men are inclined to be more indirect than women. One such context is apologizing. For example, a neighbor of mine once wrote me a note saying, “I guess I wasn’t much help” when he owed me an apology. I took this to be an indirect way of giving me one. Robin Lakoff (2001) describes an indirect apology that she received from her father. When he sent her a copy of The Portable Curmudgeon, she understood it to mean, “I’m just an old curmudgeon; please forgive me.”
不同文化背景下,人们对男性和女性说话方式的期望(即性别规范)存在差异,使用间接语言的规范也存在差异。例如,在马达加斯加的一个小的马达加斯加语使用者社区中,间接性是常态。例如,直接表达愤怒是不可接受的,尽管可以向传递情绪的中间人表达。然而,遵守这一规范的是男性;女性通常会打破这一规范,直接表达愤怒和批评。研究这个社区的语言人类学家,埃莉诺·基南 (Elinor Keenan,1974 ) 指出,当她和同事在开车时遇到一对夫妇时,是那位女士拦下他们,要求搭车,并直接询问敏感信息,例如他们要去哪里、去过哪里以及物价多少。女性也是批评社区不当行为的人。有趣的是,虽然美国女性注重间接性,马达加斯加女性注重直接性,但在这两种情况下,男性的说话风格更受重视。在马达加斯加文化中,女性的直接性(尽管是完成重要社交任务的依据)受到贬低,而男性的间接性则被视为口头技巧。这与日本人欣赏善于“ sasshi”的人的方式类似——sasshi 指的是能够猜测他人未用言语表达的意思的能力。相比之下,在美国,间接性往往与不诚实和操纵联系在一起,因此很多使用间接性语言的女性在被别人注意到时会感到内疚。
Expectations about how men and women tend to speak (that is, gender norms) vary across cultures, as do norms regarding the use of indirectness. For example, among a small community of Malagasy speakers in Madagascar, indirectness is the norm. It is unacceptable, for example, to express anger directly, though it can be expressed to an intermediary who passes the sentiment on. It is men, however, who observe this norm; women typically break it, expressing anger and criticism directly. The linguistic anthropologist who studied this community, Elinor Keenan (1974), notes that when she and her co-worker encountered a couple walking while they were riding in a car, it was the woman who flagged them down, requested a ride, and asked directly for sensitive information such as where they were going, where they had been, and how much things had cost. Women also are the ones who criticize inappropriate behavior in the community. It is interesting to note that whereas indirectness is associated with women in the United States, and directness is associated with women among the Malagasy, in both cases the style of speaking associated with men is more highly valued. In Malagasy culture, women’s directness – though relied upon to get important social tasks done – is disparaged, while men’s indirectness is admired as verbal skill. This is similar to the way that Japanese admire those who are skilled in sasshi – the ability to guess at others’ meaning that has not been put into words. In contrast, in the United States, indirectness is often associated with dishonesty and manipulation, so many women who use indirectness feel guilty about it when it is called to their attention.
说话方式上的性别差异可能会在工作中造成问题。许多位高权重的女性被认为缺乏自信和能力,而男性则可能在女性眼中傲慢好斗。一位大学校长对她的秘书说:“你能帮我打一下这个吗?”,董事会成员误以为她缺乏安全感,因为校长只是从字面上理解了她的问题,而不是将其理解为礼节上的礼貌。一位经理询问下属的意见,却被听成在请他们替她做决定。相反,一位女士认为她的同事不喜欢她,因为他无情地取笑她,而事实上他的取笑意味着他喜欢并接受她。一位男士本着扮演魔鬼代言人的建设性精神与同事争论,却被误解为真心认为她的想法很弱 — — 因此她很软弱。
Gender differences in ways of speaking can create problems at work. Many women in authority are seen as less confident and competent than they are, while men may be seen by women as arrogant or belligerent. A college president who said to her secretary, “Could you do me a favor and type this?” was misjudged as insecure by a board member who interpreted her question literally rather than as ritually polite. A manager who asked her subordinates for their input was heard as asking them to make decisions for her. Conversely, a woman thought her colleague disliked her because he teased her mercilessly, when in fact his teasing meant that he liked and accepted her. And a man who argued with a colleague in the constructive spirit of playing devil’s advocate was misheard as genuinely thinking her ideas were weak – and therefore she was.
认为女性和男性之间的对话可以视为跨文化交流的观点可以追溯到人类学家丹尼尔·马尔茨和露丝·博克(1982 年)。马尔茨和博克将人类学家和社会学家对男孩和女孩、男人和女人如何使用语言的研究结果与约翰·甘珀兹的理论框架相结合,得出结论,甘珀兹的框架可以解释跨性别对话中出现的一些挫败感。对儿童玩耍的研究表明,男孩和女孩倾向于在性别分开的群体中玩耍;他们的玩耍遵循非常不同的规则和模式;这些差异解释了一些不同的习惯和假设,这些习惯和假设导致女性和男性在交谈教导对方时感到沮丧。研究人员喜欢Marjorie Harness Goodwin ( 1990 ) 发现女孩们喜欢在小团体或两人一组中玩耍,她们的友谊是通过交谈建立起来的。女孩们不鼓励那些似乎将自己置于比别人更高的地位的行为。男孩们喜欢在更大的团体中玩耍;他们的团体更有等级制度,他们用语言来宣称自己的主导地位,吸引和留住注意力。
The idea that conversation between women and men can be regarded as crosscultural communication traces to anthropologists Daniel Maltz and Ruth Borker (1982). Maltz and Borker combined the research findings of anthropologists and sociologists who had studied how boys and girls, and men and women, use language, with the theoretical framework of John Gumperz, and concluded that Gumperz’s framework could account for some of the frustrations that arise in cross-sex conversations. Studies of children at play had revealed that boys and girls tend to play in sex-separate groups; that their play follows very different rules and patterns; and that these differences account for some of the differing habits and assumptions that lead to frustration when women and men talk to teach other. Researchers like Marjorie Harness Goodwin (1990) found that girls tend to play in small groups or pairs, and their friendships are formed through talk. Girls discourage behavior that seems to put one on a higher footing than another. Boys play in larger groups; their groups are more hierarchically organized, and they use language to assert dominance and to attract and hold attention.
例如,这些差异解释了为什么女性会问更多问题:她们认为提问是保持对话的一种方式,她们之所以想这样做,是因为她们认为对话是友谊的标志。它们还解释了为什么女性经常互相讨论问题、分享经验并表达理解——以及为什么当男性听到问题陈述是要求解决方案时,她们会感到沮丧。讨论和分享问题是女性保持对话的一种方式,也是保持平等的一种方式。另一方面,给出建议会把男性塑造成专家。
These differences explain, for example, why women ask more questions: they regard questions as a way to keep conversation going, something they want to do because they value conversation as a sign of friendship. They also explain why women often discuss problems with each other, matching experiences, and expressing understanding – and why they are frustrated when men hear the statement of problems as requests for solutions. Discussing and matching problems is a way for women to maintain talk and also maintain the appearance of equality. Giving advice, on the other hand, frames men as experts.
在前面的许多例子中,你可能会想,为什么经常交谈的人,比如家庭成员和室友,不能理解和适应彼此的风格。有时他们会这样做。但有时却恰恰相反;两个风格不同的人交流得越多,他们就越沮丧。情况似乎变得越来越糟,而不是越来越好。通常,会发生互补的分裂——两个说话者互相驱使,以越来越极端的方式表达不同的说话方式,形成一个不断扩大的螺旋。随着每个说话者都更加努力地做更多似乎显然合适的事情,一开始的小差异会变成大差异。这里有一个假设的例子。一个美国男人直接问一个日本女人是否想一起吃午饭。她不想去,于是她拒绝了邀请,说“这是个很好的主意,也许我们可以改天一起吃午饭”。因为她开着门,所以他又问了一遍。这次她的回答更加间接:这倒是个主意……午餐很不错…… 他被这种模棱两可的回答弄糊涂了,试图让她回答清楚:你是想告诉我你永远不想和我一起吃午饭,还是我应该继续问?他认为这是消除歧义的最好方法。然而,鉴于她确信直接回答是不可接受的,她的下一次回答更加间接:哎,嗯,我不知道,午餐,你知道的…… 她说话绕圈子让他更加困惑;他不知道正是问题的直接性才迫使她使用这种极端的迂回说法。对她来说,在她明确表示不感兴趣之后,他继续纠缠她,这坚定了她不和他一起吃午饭的决心。她不知道他并不清楚她的拒绝,而他越来越直接是被她的间接性激怒的。
In many of the preceding examples, you might be wondering why people who talk to each other frequently, such as family members and roommates, don’t come to understand each other’s styles and adapt to them. Sometimes they do. But sometimes the opposite happens; the more two people with differing styles interact, the more frustrated they become. Things seem to get progressively worse rather than better. Often, what happens is complementary schismogenesis – a process by which two speakers drive one another to more and more extreme expressions of divergent ways of speaking in an ever-widening spiral. What begins as a small difference becomes a big one, as each speaker tries harder to do more of what seems obviously appropriate. Here is a hypothetical example. An American man asks a Japanese woman directly if she’d like to go to lunch. She does not want to, so she declines the invitation by saying, That’s a very nice idea, maybe we could have lunch one day. Because she has left the door open, he asks again. This time she replies even more indirectly: That’s an idea … lunch is nice … Befuddled by this ambiguous response, he tries to pin her down: Are you trying to tell me you never want to have lunch with me, or should I keep asking? He regards this as the best way to cut through the ambiguity. However, given her conviction that it would be unacceptable to reply directly, her next reply is even more indirect: Gee, well, I don’t know, lunch, you know… Her talking in circles confuses him even more; he has no idea that it was the directness of his question that drove her to these extreme circumlocutions. For her part, his continuing to pester her after she has made her lack of interest clear reinforces her determination to avoid having lunch with him. She has no idea that her refusals were not clear to him, and that his increasing directness was provoked by her indirectness.
我们讨论过的语言元素有空间相关性。人类学家 爱德华·T·霍尔 (Edward T. Hall) 写过很多书关于空间关系学,即研究人们如何使用空间的“一种专门的文化阐述”(Hall 1969 : 1)。Hall(1959 : 205)的其中一个空间关系学例子对应于当说话者对于轮流说话之间适当的停顿量有不同期望时所发生的情况。Hall 注意到,每个人都对陌生人之间的适当交谈距离有自己的看法。如果与你交谈的人离你太近,你会自动后退以调整你们之间的距离。如果某人站得太远,你会自动向内靠。但是我们对交谈距离的感觉因文化而异。Hall 注意到,他曾经看到一个美国人和一个外国人在一条长长的走廊里慢慢前进,外国人试图通过缩短他们之间的距离来让自己感到舒服,而美国人则不断后退以调整他们之间的距离到他觉得舒服的距离。
There are spatial correlates to the linguistic elements we have discussed. The anthropologist Edward T. Hall has written many books on proxemics, the study of how people use space “as a specialized elaboration of culture” (Hall 1969: 1). One of Hall’s (1959: 205) examples of proxemics corresponds to what happens when speakers have different expectations about the appropriate amount of pause between turns. Hall notes that each person has a sense of the appropriate conversational distance between strangers. If someone you’re talking to gets too close, you automatically back up to adjust the space between you. If someone stands too far away, you automatically move in. But our sense of conversational distance varies by culture. Hall notes that he has seen an American and a foreigner inch their way down a long corridor as the foreigner tries to get comfortable by closing the space between them, and the American keeps backing up to adjust the distance between them to what is comfortable for him.
沿着走廊缓缓前行是互补分裂的另一个例子。每个人最终都会到达一个他无意去的地方,因为他对其他人的行为作出反应,却没有意识到这种行为是对他自己的反应自己的。
The gradual trip down the corridor is another example of complementary schismogenesis. Each person ends up in a place he had no intention of going as he reacts to the other’s behavior without realizing that the behavior is a reaction to his own.
“互补分裂发生”这一术语是由格雷戈里·贝特森([ 1935 ] 1972)描述了不同文化接触时会发生什么:每个文化都会通过采取更多相反的行为来对另一个文化的不同行为模式做出反应。例如,贝特森描述了一种假设情况,一种偏爱自信的文化与一种偏爱顺从的文化接触。顺从的群体会以顺从的态度对待攻击性行为,而第一个群体会以更激进的态度做出反应,依此类推,直到每个群体都表现出比平时更激进和更顺从的行为。这种模式是跨文化交流中最令人惊讶和沮丧的方面之一。我们愿意相信,接触来自不同文化的人会导致相互理解和包容。有时确实如此,但有时,最初的差异被夸大,以至于对方最终会做出更多我们不喜欢的行为,我们发现自己会以我们原本不会做甚至可能不喜欢的方式行事。例如,当说话者对两轮之间的正常停顿时间有不同的看法时,就会发生这种情况。一开始只是很小的差异,最后却变成了很大的差异,一个人不停地说话,另一个人则保持沉默。我们很少停下来思考对方的行为是否在某种程度上是对我们自己的反应。尽管双方都认为对方选择了这种行为方式,但双方都可能对由此产生的不平衡感到沮丧。你可能会说,语言和文化的不可分割性是导致互补分裂的罪魁祸首。
The term “complementary schismogenesis” was coined by Gregory Bateson ([1935] 1972) to describe what happens when divergent cultures come into contact: each reacts to the other’s differing pattern of behavior by doing more of the opposing behavior. As an example, Bateson describes a hypothetical situation in which a culture that favors assertiveness comes into contact with a culture that favors submissiveness. The submissive group will react to aggressive behavior with submissiveness, to which the first group will react with more aggressiveness, and so on, until each is exhibiting far more aggressiveness and submissiveness, respectively, than they normally would. This pattern is one of the most surprising and frustrating aspects of crosscultural communication. We would like to believe that exposure to people from a different culture would lead to mutual understanding and accommodation. Sometimes it does, but at other times, initial differences become exaggerated, so that the other ends up doing more of the behavior we dislike, and we find ourselves acting in ways we would not otherwise act and may not even like in ourselves. This is what happens when, for example, speakers differ with regard to how long a pause they regard as normal between turns. What begins as a small difference ends up as a big one, with one person talking nonstop and the other silent. We rarely stop and question whether the other’s behavior is in part a reaction to our own. Though each believes the other chose that form of behavior, both may be frustrated with the resulting imbalance. You might say it is the inseparability of language and culture that is the culprit driving complementary schismogenesis.
到目前为止,我们的讨论表明,语言和文化是密不可分的,因为语言是在文化背景下学习和使用的。
Our discussion so far has shown that language and culture are inseparable, because language is learned and used in a cultural context.
为了强调语言和文化的不可分割性,语言人类学家 Michael Agar ( 1994 ) 用一个词来统称它们,语言文化。用一个词来表达会很有帮助,因为“语言和文化”这个短语创造了两个独立实体的概念;换句话说,语言本身塑造了我们思考事物的方式。此外,语言通过提供方法来整理我们遇到的许多物体、人和经历,从而赋予世界一种连贯感。
In order to emphasize the inseparability of language and culture, linguistic anthropologist Michael Agar (1994) refers to them collectively by a single term, languaculture. It helps to have a single word because the phrase “language and culture” creates the notion of two separate entities; in other words, the language itself shapes the way we think about things. Moreover, language gives the world a sense of coherence by providing ways to order the many objects, people, and experiences we encounter.
语言塑造思维的说法被称为萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说,以其最初提出者本杰明·李·沃尔夫和他的老师人类学语言学家爱德华·萨丕尔的名字命名。一些学者将该假说分为强假说和弱假说。强形式被称为语言决定论:认为你所说的语言就像一件束缚衣,决定了你的思维方式。根据语言决定论,你永远无法真正将文化和语言视为一体,因为你的语言没有给你一个词来代表它们。很少有语言学家相信语言决定论。相比之下,萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说的弱形式,即语言相对论,认为语言使人们更容易构思具有词汇或强制性语法类别的思想,但人们仍然可以用其他方式思考;只是需要付出更多努力。阿加尔这样解释语言相对论:
The claim that language shapes thinking is referred to as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, named for its original proponent, Benjamin Lee Whorf, and his teacher, the anthropological linguist Edward Sapir. Some scholars make a distinction between strong and weak forms of this hypothesis. The strong form is called linguistic determinism: the idea that the language you speak is like a straitjacket that determines how you think. According to linguistic determinism, you can never really conceive of culture and language as one because your language does not give you a single word to represent them. Few linguists believe in linguistic determinism. In contrast, the weak form of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, linguistic relativity, claims that a language makes it easier to conceive of ideas for which it has words or obligatory grammatical categories, but it is still possible to think in other ways; it just takes more effort. Agar explains linguistic relativity this way:
语言不是监狱;它是你感到舒适的房间,你知道如何在里面走动......但熟悉并不意味着你不能在另一个房间里生存;它确实意味着你需要一段时间才能弄清楚,因为它不是你所习惯的。
Language isn’t a prison; it’s a room you’re comfortable with, that you know how to move around in … But familiarity doesn’t mean you can’t ever exist in another room; it does mean it’ll take a while to figure it out, because it’s not what you’re used to.
换句话说,在特定文化中成长的过程中学习一门特定的语言,会让你逐渐自然而然地看待世界;而之后,学习与不同文化相关的另一种语言会让你感到吃惊,并让你意识到还有其他方式来概念化世界。语言决定了你看待世界的方式。
In other words, learning a particular language while growing up in a given culture provides ways of representing the world that come to seem natural; later, learning a different language which is associated with a different culture pulls you up short and makes you realize that there are other ways of conceptualizing the world. A language frames the way you see the world.
一位有影响力的语言学家是戴尔·海姆斯 (Dell Hymes),他主张语言和文化密不可分,并创立了言语民族志领域。海姆斯的交际能力概念仿照乔姆斯基的语言能力概念,并建立在“语言使用理论”与“语法理论”同样重要的说法之上。因此,言语民族志 (或交流民族志) 的目标是“发现并阐明使一个社区成员能够进行和解释言语的能力”(Hymes 1972 : 52)。这一领域的基础性文本是 Gumperz 和 Hymes ( 1972 )收集的论文集,随后不久由 Hymes 的学生 Richard Bauman 和 Joel Sherzer ( 1974 ) 编辑的第二本论文集。这些卷中的每一篇文章都展示了理解特定文化社区中的语言使用所必需的文化知识。
An influential linguist who argued that language and culture are inseparable was Dell Hymes, who founded the field known as the ethnography of speaking. Hymes’s concept of communicative competence was patterned on Chomsky’s notion of linguistic competence and founded on the claim that “a theory of language use” is every bit as crucial as “a theory of grammar.” Thus the goal of ethnography of speaking (or, alternatively, ethnography of communication) is “to discover and explicate the competence that enables members of a community to conduct and interpret speech” (Hymes 1972: 52). The foundational text in this field is the collection of essays gathered by Gumperz and Hymes (1972), followed shortly by a second collection edited by Hymes’s students Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer (1974). Each essay in these volumes demonstrates the cultural knowledge necessary to make sense of language use in a given cultural community.
任何试图将一种语言翻译成另一种语言的人,很快就会遇到原文中没有对应词的单词。同样重要的是,尽管可能不那么明显,在翻译过程中,你必须添加原文中没有对应词的单词。引用西班牙哲学家何塞·奥特加·加塞特的话,人类学家语言学家 AL Becker ( 1995 ) 把翻译的这些缺陷称为丰富性和不足性。“丰富性”是指翻译中增加的许多原文中不存在的含义。“不足性”是指翻译中增加的许多原文中不存在的含义。由于第二语言没有词汇或语法范畴来表达某些含义,因此在翻译中这些含义会丢失。
Anyone who has tried to translate from one language to another quickly encounters words in the original language for which there is no counterpart in the other. Equally significant, though perhaps less immediately obvious, in translating you have to add words for which there was no counterpart in the original. Citing the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, the anthropological linguist A. L. Becker (1995) refers to these liabilities of translation as exuberances and deficiencies. “Exuberances” are the many meanings that are added by the translation which do not exist in the original language. “Deficiencies” are the many meanings that are lost in translation because the second language does not have words or grammatical categories to express them.
语言之间的丰富与不足比在一种语言中找到与另一种语言中的单词相对应的词语的挑战更为深刻。语言的语法结构本身提供了贝克尔所说的连贯系统,通过该系统,说话者可以学会观察和整理世界。例如,在英语中,和其他西方语言一样,动词的形式表明时态。因此,当他们说出动词时,英语使用者必须指出所表示的动作是发生在现在、发生在过去还是将在未来发生。语言本身迫使英语使用者注意时间性,我们理所当然地认为时间性是理解世界事件的基础。时间因果关系为英语母语人士提供了一个“连贯系统”——一种理解和整理世界的方式。相比之下,南亚语言,如缅甸语、马来语和爪哇语没有语法时态。说话者可能会使用动词而不表明动作是发生在过去、现在还是将来。因此,贝克尔说,“西方人在翻译东南亚文本时,通常会添加时间因果关系,这是时态标记语言的基本连贯系统”(第 226 页)。这种热情——翻译中添加的内容——改变了原文创造的世界。
Exuberances and deficiencies between languages go much deeper than the challenge of finding words in one language to correspond to words in another. The very grammatical structure of a language provides what Becker calls a coherence system by which speakers learn to view and order the world. For example, in English, as in other western languages, verbs come in forms that indicate tense. So when they utter verbs, English speakers must indicate whether the action denoted takes place in the present, took place in the past, or will take place in the future. The language itself forces English speakers to pay attention to temporality, and we come to take it for granted that temporality is fundamental to understanding events in the world. Temporal causality provides a “coherence system” for native speakers of English – a way of making sense of, and ordering, the world. In contrast, South Asian languages such as Burmese, Malay, and Javanese do not have grammatical tense. A speaker may well use a verb without indicating whether the action occurred in the past, occurs in the present, or will occur in the future. Therefore, Becker says, “a common Western exuberance in translating Southeast Asian texts is to add temporal causality, the basic coherence system in tense-marking languages” (p. 226). This exuberance – what gets added in a translation – alters the world created by the original text.
同时,贝克尔还表明,“翻译的缺陷——即缅甸语中没有翻译的东西——包括缅甸语话语连贯性体系的核心内容”(第 236 页)。例如,就像英语动词必须表示时态一样,缅甸语名词必须有称为分类词的语言小品词来区分话语世界。在缅甸语中,当你提到一条河流时,你必须将该河流归类为一个地点(野餐的目的地)、一条线(在地图上)、一个区段(渔区)、一个遥远的弧线(通往大海的通道)、一个连接(连接两个村庄)、一个神圣的物体(在神话中)或一个概念单位(一般的河流)(Becker 1975)。就像英语中的动词需要表示时态的语言标记一样,缅甸语中的名词需要分类词来描述名词所使用的上下文。这些分类器所确定的类别提供了一个连贯的系统,缅甸语使用者通过该系统来排列世界,就像我们倾向于按照时间顺序来排列世界一样。
At the same time, Becker shows that “[t]he deficiencies of the translation – those things in the Burmese that have no counterpart in the translation – include things at the core of the Burmese system of discourse coherence” (p. 236). For example, just as English verbs must indicate tense, Burmese nouns must have linguistic particles called classifiers that distinguish the universe of discourse. In Burmese, when you refer to a river, you must classify the river as a place (the destination for a picnic), a line (on a map), a section (fishing areas), a distant arc (a passage to the sea), a connection (tying two villages), a sacred object (in mythology), or a conceptual unit (rivers in general) (Becker 1975). Just as verbs in English require linguistic markings that indicate tense, nouns in Burmese require classifiers that characterize the context in which the noun is being used. The categories identified by these classifiers provide a coherence system by which Burmese speakers order the world, just as we tend to order the world by temporal sequence.
除了特定语言所特有的语法类别和词汇所带来的丰富和不足之外,语言与文化密不可分的另一个方面是,我们从话语中获取的大部分意义来自于这些词汇在过去是如何被使用的,贝克尔调用先前的文本。因此,一部牛仔电影更多的是关于先前的牛仔电影,而不是关于美国边境发生的事件。从未看过西部片的观众会错过很多层次的含义,而对于看过许多西部片的观众来说,这些含义是显而易见的。除了最基本的语言理解之外,对先前文本的记忆对于所有语言都是必不可少的,而正是这种记忆 — — 或者缺乏记忆 — — 成为了跨文化交流的最大障碍。你可能会说,美国人没有意识到你吃了吗?是一个问候语,而不是一个字面上的问题,缅甸人没有意识到你好吗?是一个问候语,而不是一个字面上的问题,是因为他们缺乏母语人士所拥有的先前文本。
In addition to the exuberances and deficiencies introduced by grammatical categories and words that are particular to a given language, another way in which language is inseparable from culture is that much of the meaning we glean from an utterance comes from how those words have been used in the past, what Becker calls prior text. Thus a cowboy movie is about prior cowboy movies more than it is about events that occurred on the American frontier. A viewer who had never before seen a western would miss many layers of meaning that would be obvious to a viewer who had seen many. Memories of prior text are necessary for all but the most rudimentary understanding of a language, and it is this memory – or the lack of it – that is the biggest barrier when speakers talk to each other across cultures. You might say that the reason an American does not realize that Have you eaten yet? is a greeting, not a literal question, and that a Burmese doesn’t realize that How are you? is a greeting, not a literal question, is that they lack the prior text that a native speaker has.
一项对 1000 名翻译人员和口译员的调查发现,齐卢巴语是刚果民主共和国东南部的一种语言,也是世界上最难翻译的单词。ilunga 一词的意思是“第一次可以原谅任何虐待,第二次可以容忍,但绝不会第三次的人”。排在第二位的是shlimazl,意第绪语,意思是“长期倒霉的人”。排在第三位的是Naa,在日本关西地区用来强调陈述或同意某人的观点。
A survey of 1,000 translators and interpreters has identified a word from Tshiluba, a language spoken in southeastern DR Congo, as the world’s most difficult word to translate. The word ilunga means ‘a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.’ In second place was shlimazl, which is Yiddish for ‘a chronically unlucky person.’ Third was Naa, used in the Kansai area of Japan to emphasize statements or agree with someone.
这些定义似乎很简单,但问题在于试图传达围绕这些词语的文化体验和假设。在同声传译的速度下,这更加困难。口译员也难以理解政治、商业或体育方面的技术术语。例如,googly是一个板球术语,意思是“投球手用明显的腿部动作伪装的离地球”。如果你不懂板球,就很难欣赏一个好的googly。不!
The definitions seem pretty straightforward, but the problem is trying to convey the cultural experiences and assumptions surrounding these words. This is even more difficult to do at the speed of simultaneous interpretation. Interpreters also have difficulty with the technical jargon of politics, business or sport. For example, googly is a cricket term for ‘an off-breaking ball disguised by the bowler with an apparent leg-break action.’ If you don’t understand cricket, it won’t be easy to appreciate a good googly. Naa!
了解在将文本从一种语言翻译成另一种语言时丢失了什么、添加了什么,可以揭示语言反映和创造世界的众多方式中的几种。同样,不同文化中不同的语言元素正是语言创造意义的要素。如果不选择音量大小、声音质量、词语和语法结构、如何发言、如何组织词语以表明你在说话时想做什么等等,根本无法说话——而所有这些选择都因学习语言的文化而异。这就是为什么甚至谈论“语言和文化”也是一种误导;这些词本身就意味着两者可以分开。
Understanding what is lost and what is added when texts are translated from one language to another reveals a few of the many ways that a language both reflects and creates a world. Similarly, the linguistic elements that vary from one culture to another are the very elements by which language works to create meaning. There is simply no way to speak without making choices about level of loudness, voice quality, words and grammatical structures, how to get the floor, how to frame the words to signal what you think you’re doing when you speak, and so on – and all these choices vary depending on the culture in which the language was learned. That is why it is misleading even to speak of “language and culture”; the very words imply that the two can be separated.
本章探讨了语言和文化之间的关系。正如术语 “语言文化”意味着语言和文化密不可分,因为语言是由因文化而异的语言元素组成的。说话者使用一系列语言元素来在对话中传达含义,但使用这些元素的适当方式因文化而异。这些文化差异影响来自不同国家的说话者之间的接触,以及来自不同文化和地区背景的美国人之间的接触,甚至影响女性和男性之间的接触。跨文化接触可以深入了解语言如何创造意义,以及语言如何塑造说话者感知和安排世界的方式。
This chapter has explored the relationship between language and culture. As the term “languaculture” implies, language and culture are inseparable, because language is composed of linguistic elements that vary by culture. Speakers use a range of linguistic elements to convey meaning in conversation, but the appropriate ways to use these elements vary from culture to culture. These cultural differences affect encounters between speakers from different countries as well as between Americans of different cultural and regional backgrounds, and even between women and men. Crosscultural encounters provide insight into how language works to create meaning and how language shapes the way a speaker perceives and orders the world.
书中通过现实生活中的对话实例,阐述了语言与文化之间的关系,包括开头的德国和美国大学生之间的轶事例子,以及对来自不同地区和种族背景的美国人之间进行的录音对话的详细分析。语言现象 因文化而异的对话方式包括话题、语调模式、话轮转换、对重叠的态度和使用以及间接性。正如 John Gumperz 的互动社会语言学著作所表明的那样,这些语言现象在使用上的系统性差异会对现实世界产生影响。如果说话者使用语言并期望语言以可预测的、文化上连贯的方式和顺序使用,那么可以说对话具有仪式性。当对话仪式共享时,结果不仅是成功的交流,而且还会带来令人满意的连贯感。
The relationship between language and culture has been illustrated by real-life examples of conversations, including an opening anecdotal example of German and American college students, as well as detailed analysis of tape-recorded conversations that took place between Americans of different regional and ethnic backgrounds. Linguistic phenomena that vary by culture include topic, intonational patterns, turn-taking, attitudes toward and uses of overlap, and indirectness. Systematic differences in uses of these linguistic phenomena have real-world consequences, as the interactional sociolinguistic work of John Gumperz demonstrates. To the extent that speakers use language and expect language to be used in predictable, culturally coherent ways and sequences, conversation can be said to have a ritual nature. When conversational rituals are shared, the result is not only successful communication, but also a satisfying sense of coherence in the world.
语言学家 Roger Shuy ( 1993 : 8–9) 给出了以下一个跨文化遭遇的例子,该遭遇产生了非常重大的影响。一名日本工业工程师因涉嫌试图从代表一家美国公司的某人手中购买工业机密而被起诉,而该人实际上是一名卧底的 FBI 特工。针对这名日本工程师的录音证据包括以下对话:
Linguist Roger Shuy (1993: 8–9) gives the following example of a crosscultural encounter with very significant consequences. A Japanese industrial engineer was prosecuted for allegedly trying to buy industrial secrets from someone representing an American company who was actually an undercover FBI agent. The tape-recorded evidence against the Japanese engineer included the following conversation:
经纪人:您瞧,这些计划很难获得。工程师:嗯嗯。经纪人:我得在晚上去拿到它们。工程师:嗯嗯。经纪人:这并非易事。工程师:嗯嗯。经纪人:明白了吗?工程师:嗯嗯。
AGENT: You see, these plans are very hard to get.ENGINEER: Uh-huh.AGENT: I’d need to get them at night.ENGINEER: Uh-huh.AGENT: It’s not done easily.ENGINEER: Uh-huh.AGENT: Understand?ENGINEER: Uh-huh.
控方声称,特工的陈述清楚地表明工程师要求的信息是秘密的,而工程师的肯定回答证明他知道这一点并试图非法获取这些信息。语言特征、间接性和秘密回应在这次对话中起着什么作用?跨文化差异在评估证据是否证明工程师有罪方面有何相关性?
The prosecution claimed that the agent’s statements made it clear that the information the engineer was requesting was secret, and that the engineer’s affirmative responses proved that he was aware of this and sought to obtain them illegally. What role do the linguistic features, indirectness and back-channel responses, play in this conversation? How are crosscultural differences relevant in assessing whether or not the evidence proves the engineer’s guilt?
按照框 10.3 “互动社会语言学方法”中讨论的方法,记录并分析自然发生的对话。此记录不得保密。在记录你的朋友或其他人之前,你必须征得他们的知情同意。听录音并找出一小段(大约一两分钟)进行转录。你可以选择出现一些问题或误解的片段,或者特别顺利的片段,或者只是你注意到本章中讨论的特征之一的片段。你可以寻找与本章中提到的语言元素相关的对话的任何方面,包括但不限于:
Record and analyze a naturally occurring conversation, following the methods discussed in Box 10.3 on “Interactional sociolinguistic methodology.” This recording must not be secret. Prior to recording your friends or anybody else, you must obtain their informed consent. Listen to the recording and identify a small segment (about a minute or two) to transcribe. You may choose a segment in which some problem or misunderstanding arose, or a segment which went especially smoothly, or just a segment in which you noticed one of the features discussed in the chapter. You may look for any aspects of the conversation that relate to linguistic elements mentioned in the chapter, including but not limited to:
在自己的生活中进行语言实地工作。想一想你曾经有过的一次谈话,谈话者(可能是你)使用了间接表达。这种表达方式有效吗?是否存在误解?谈话参与者似乎欣赏还是讨厌这种间接表达?与室友或家人就完成家务进行的谈判往往是丰富的例子来源。
Do linguistic field work in your own life. Think of a conversation you had in which a speaker (maybe you) used indirectness. Was it effective? Was there any misunderstanding? Did the participants in the conversation seem to appreciate or resent the indirectness? Negotiations with roommates or family members about accomplishing chores are often a rich source of examples.
尝试不同的对话空间。在不让自己陷入威胁的情况下,尝试站得比平时与他人交谈时离对方近一点或远一点,并注意对方的反应以及你自己的反应。
Experiment with conversational space. Without getting yourself into a threatening situation, try standing a little closer or a little farther away than you normally do when talking to someone, and note how the other person responds as well as how you yourself respond.
尝试调整语速、停顿和轮流发言。如果你在谈话中说了太多话,试着先数到七再开始说话,看看对方是否开始说话。如果你觉得很难插上话,那就强迫自己在感到舒服之前开始说话,看看对方是否会停下来并让你发言。
Experiment with pacing, pausing, and turn-taking. If you are in a conversation in which you’re doing more than your share of talking, try counting to seven before you begin speaking and see whether the other person begins to speak. If you are finding it hard to get a word in edgewise, push yourself to begin speaking before it feels comfortable and see whether the other person stops and cedes you the floor.
《纽约时报》 2005 年 1 月 26 日(第 A17 页)报道了哈佛大学校长劳伦斯·萨默斯的争议。根据该文章,许多哈佛教授认为校长“在会议上羞辱教职员工、阻止辩论和主导讨论,这让他们心生怨恨。”萨默斯校长在接受采访时表示,“他喜欢辩论和挑战,‘有时人们会认为我在抵制他们的想法,而我其实是在尝试接受他们的想法。’”
The New York Times, January 26, 2005 (p. A17) reported a controversy involving the president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers. According to the article, many Harvard professors felt that the president had “created a reservoir of ill will with what they say is a pattern of humiliating faculty members in meetings, shutting down debate, and dominating discussions.” In an interview, President Summers said that “his propensity to debate and challenge ‘sometimes leaves people thinking I’m resistant to their ideas when I am really trying to engage with their ideas.’”
考虑到在德国学习的美国学生的经历,讨论本章中讨论的语言使用方式如何在争议中发挥作用。
Bearing in mind the experience of the American student studying in Germany, discuss how ways of using language discussed in this chapter might be playing a role in this controversy.
世界各地接二连三地发生争议,因为政府试图控制哪些语言或语言形式可以教授或用于某些目的。通常,所涉及的问题似乎不值得关注,但其背后的问题实际上相当严重。我们首先描述一些这样的案例。为了理解它们,我们来看看语言和身份之间的关系,回顾语言社会学家 Joshua Fishman 提出的一些概念。然后,我们重新考虑我们的介绍案例,看看它们为什么有争议。这引出了我们讨论语言学家和非语言学家如何看待语言标准化和非标准语言变体(如黑人英语)的分析。一种将语言变体分为正式和非正式类别的社会组织具有一些独特的属性。这种现象称为双语。在研究了不被认可的变体之后,我们讨论了语言和方言之间的区别,发现这种区别极难确定。事实上,我们将会看到,你所说的是语言还是方言,这既是一种语言现象,也是一种政治现象;有些语言从语言变成了方言,然后又变回语言,这一切都取决于政治环境。接下来,我们再来研究一个语言政治案例——努力使英语成为美国的官方语言。这个案例令人费解,因为英语在美国政治和社会生活中占据主导地位,所以我们将研究这场运动背后的政治潮流。最后,我们讨论有关言论内容及其政治反应的两个问题:(1)亵渎和咒骂,以及(2)仇恨言论。
In incident after incident around the world, controversies arise as governments try to control what languages or forms of languages are allowed to be taught or used for certain purposes. Often the issues involved might seem hardly worth the attention they get, yet what is behind them is actually quite serious. We start by describing a number of such cases. In order to understand them, we take a look at the relationship between language and identity, reviewing some of the concepts introduced by the sociologist of language Joshua Fishman. We then reconsider our introductory cases and see why they are controversial. This leads us to a discussion of how linguists and nonlinguists view language standardization and analyses of nonstandard language varieties, such as Ebonics. One kind of social organization of varieties of a language into more and less formal categories has some unique properties. This phenomenon is called diglossia. Once we’ve looked at disapproved varieties, we discuss the difference between a language and a dialect, and find that the difference is extraordinarily difficult to pin down. In fact, we’ll see that whether what you speak is a language or a dialect is as much a political phenomenon as a linguistic one; some languages have gone from being languages to being dialects and back again, all depending on the political environment. Next, we examine one more case of the politics of language – the effort to make English the official language of the United States. This case is puzzling because English is so thoroughly dominant in American political and social life, so we will examine the political currents behind the movement. Finally, we take up two issues about the content of speech and the political response to them: (1) blasphemy and cursing, and (2) hate speech.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
直到1991年,如果你在土耳其东南部被发现用库尔德语唱歌,你可能会被逮捕。那一年,对使用库尔德语的严格禁令被取消,但限制仍然存在。2002 年,一些学生在试图向大学官员提交请愿书,要求允许教授库尔德语时被警方拘留。
Until 1991, it you were caught singing in Kurdish in southeastern Turkey, you could be arrested. In that year the strict ban on the use of Kurdish was lifted, but there are still restrictions. In 2002, students were taken into police custody while trying to present petitions to university officials to allow Kurdish to be taught.
在中国,以猫和老鼠为主角的电视卡通片《汤姆和杰瑞》大获成功。2004 年之前,汤姆和杰瑞讲的是上海话等地方方言。后来,北京政府出面叫停了这一节目,坚持要求停止使用地方方言的电视节目,改用官方语言普通话。让问题更加复杂的是,中国各方言之间的差异非常大,在世界其他地方,它们可能被视为不同的语言。例如,“谢谢”在普通话中是“谢谢” ,在广东话中是“嘟囔”,在上海话中是“傻囔”。如今,在中国的某些地区,汤姆和杰瑞已经不那么容易听懂了(也许也不那么有趣了)。
In China, the television cartoon show featuring Tom and Jerry, the warring cat and mouse, was a big hit. Until 2004, Tom and Jerry spoke local dialects, like Shanghainese; then the Beijing government put a stop to it, insisting that television programming in local dialects must end, to be replaced by Mandarin (putonghua), the official language. Complicating matters is the fact that Chinese dialects are so different from each other that they might be considered separate languages in other parts of the world. For example, ‘Thank you’ is xie xie in putonghua, do jey in guongdonghua (Cantonese), and sha zha in Shanghainese. These days Tom and Jerry are not as easy to understand (and maybe not as funny) in some regions of China.
2002 年,新加坡政府将一部喜剧电影评为 NC-17,该电影取材于四位普通新加坡人的生活。NC-17 级意味着 17 岁以下的人不得观看。这部电影没有暴力、性爱和粗俗的语言,但对话中包含了太多政府认为的语法错误。美国阿拉斯加州选民以压倒性多数通过了一项修改该州宪法的提案,将英语定为该州唯一的官方语言。Tuntutuliak 村的地方政府迅速通过了一项决议,要求所有地方政府事务都必须使用英语进行。尤皮克语,尽管其 380 名居民中的大多数也讲英语。
In 2002, the government of Singapore put a rating of NC-17 on a comedy motion picture consisting of excerpts from the lives of four ordinary Singaporeans. A rating of NC-17 means that no one younger than seventeen is allowed to see it. The movie contained no violence, no sex, no profanity, but the dialogue included too much of what the government considered bad grammar. Voters in the state of Alaska in the United States overwhelmingly passed an initiative amending the state’s constitution to make English the state’s only official language. The local government of the village of Tuntutuliak promptly passed a resolution requiring that all local government business be conducted in Yup’ik, despite the fact that most of its 380 residents also speak English.
考虑这些情况可能会让你想问为什么。土耳其政府为什么要关心学校和大学里教授什么语言或不教授什么语言?中国政府为什么要关心卡通猫和老鼠怎么说话?“糟糕的语法”如何电影对话中的库尔德语能获得 NC-17 评级吗?为什么通图图利亚克政府要强制使用尤皮克语,而其大多数人都能说一口流利的英语?土耳其政府究竟为什么要关心人们是否在公共场合用库尔德语唱歌?
Considering these cases might well make you want to ask why. Why does the government of Turkey care what languages are or are not taught in schools and universities? Why should the government of China care how a cartoon cat and mouse speak? How does “bad grammar” in a movie dialogue earn an NC-17 rating? Why should the Tuntutuliak government require the use of Yup’ik when most of its people can speak English perfectly well? And why on earth should the government of Turkey care whether people sing in Kurdish in public?
毫无疑问,这些问题答案中最关键的部分可以用一个词来概括——身份。一位最初对阿拉斯加官方英语修正案发出禁令的法官(该修正案后来被阿拉斯加最高法院恢复)表示,立法禁止使用某些语言是错误的,因为“语言是开始,它是我们身份的一部分”(Rosen 2002)。我们在第 9 章中看到,方言差异用于区分人群。不同语言之间的差异也能达到同样的效果。(事实上,我们很快就会发现,所谓的“语言”和所谓的“方言”之间的区别比你想象的要模糊得多。)每个人都知道人们使用语言来向其他人传达想法,但同样真实的是,每当我们说一种语言或方言而不是另一种语言或方言时,我们都在表现出对一个社会群体的亲和力,而与其他社会群体保持距离。言语的这种身份标记功能至少与交流功能一样重要。社会身份与忠诚息息相关,政府非常关心公民的忠诚度。因此,语言往往是政治的重要组成部分。随着我们的深入,我们将看到身份问题如何影响上述每个案例。
No doubt the most crucial part of the answer to these questions can be summed up in one word – identity. A judge who originally issued an injunction against the Alaskan official English amendment (the amendment was later reinstated by the Alaska Supreme Court) said that legislating against the use of certain languages is wrong because, “language is the beginning, it is part of who we are” (Rosen 2002). We’ve seen in Chapter 9 that dialect differences are used to distinguish groups of people. Differences among languages accomplish the same thing. (In fact, we’ll soon see that the difference between what are called “languages” and what are called “dialects” is a lot fuzzier than you might think.) Everyone knows that people use language to get ideas across to other people, but it’s also true that whenever we speak in one language or dialect rather than another we are displaying an affinity with one social group and distancing ourselves from others. This identity-marking function of speech is at least as important as the communicative one. Social identity is tied to loyalty, and governments are very much concerned with where the loyalties of their citizens lie. Hence, language is often a very big part of politics. As we go along, we will see how identity issues influenced each of the above cases.
大多数语言学家认为,野生动物并不使用人类语言意义上的语言(但请参见 第 13 章有关动物语言的讨论),但它们确实以与人类非常相似的方式使用“方言”——帮助标记社会分工。白冠麻雀的基本鸟鸣声有“清晰”和“嗡嗡”两种,由加利福尼亚州马林县雷斯角南北两侧的群体演唱(Baker and Cunningham 1985:87–95)。同样,座头鲸也有与不同鲸群相关的不同版本的水下歌曲(Rendall and Whitehead 2001:312–313)。因此,你可以说,语言的社会身份功能比其交流功能更基本,因为它是非人类物种所共有的。
Most linguists agree that animals in the wild do not use language in the sense of human language (but see the discussion of animal language in Chapter 13) but they do use “dialects” in much the same way that humans do – to help mark social divisions. White-crowned sparrows have “clear” and “buzzy” varieties of their basic bird-songs that are sung by groups in the north and south part of Point Reyes in Marin County, California (Baker and Cunningham 1985: 87–95). Humpback whales similarly have distinct versions of their underwater songs associated with different pods (Rendall and Whitehead 2001: 312–313). So you might say that the social identity function of language is more basic than its communicative function, since it is shared with nonhuman species.
为了更清楚地了解语言如何影响政治,我们必须理解语言社会学家约书亚·菲什曼(1972)解释的一些基本概念。菲什曼从日常话语中选取术语并赋予它们技术定义。 其中一个术语是民族。民族是一个组织层次相对复杂的社会群体。它敏锐地意识到自己独特的风俗和价值观,并采取行动去保护和加强它们。一个民族可能作为一个主权国家控制领土,也可能不控制领土。西班牙的巴斯克人就是一个民族生活在一个受另一个民族控制的国家境内的例子,他们自己只有有限的领土自治权。伊拉克的库尔德人是另一个这样的例子。另一方面,葡萄牙是一个受单一民族控制的国家的例子;因此,它 是一个民族。
To see more clearly how language works its way into politics, we’ll have to understand some basic concepts explained by the sociologist of language Joshua Fishman (1972). Fishman takes terms from everyday discourse and gives them technical definitions. One such term is nationality. A nationality is a social group with a relatively complex level of organization. It is keenly aware of its distinctive customs and values and acts to preserve and strengthen them. A nationality may or may not control territory as a sovereign nation. The Basques in Spain are an example of a nationality living within the borders of a state under the control of another nationality, with only limited territorial autonomy of its own. The Kurds in Iraq are another such example. Portugal, on the other hand, would be an example of a state under the control of a single nationality; hence, it is a nation.
菲什曼的定义还将民族与族群区分开来,因为民族的关注点超越了当地事务。族群主要关注自己当地的事务,对其他社会实体不太感兴趣,除了他们最亲近的邻居。在极端情况下,族群甚至不知道他们生活在哪个国家。另一方面,民族则非常关心他们相对于周围其他社会群体的地位。他们敏锐地意识到他们所居住国家的政治力量,并渴望从政府那里获得让步,从而获得政治优势。在许多情况下,民族坚持在自己的领土上享有一定程度的自治权。最终,民族的目标是建立自己的主权,成为一个独立的新国家。过去四分之一世纪里,欧洲和其他地方的许多民族都成功实现了这一目标。前苏联解体后的国家就是典型的例子。
Fishman’s definitions also distinguish nationalities from ethnic groups because their concerns go beyond local affairs. Ethnic groups are concerned primarily with their own local affairs and don’t have much interest in other social entities, except possibly their closest neighbors. In extreme cases, ethnic groups do not even know what country they live in. Nationalities, on the other hand, are very much concerned with their status in relation to other social groups around them. They are keenly aware of the political forces at work in the country they live in and are eager to extract concessions from their governments that will give them political advantages. In many cases, nationalities insist on some level of autonomy over their own territory. In the ultimate situation, a nationality has as a goal the establishment of its own sovereignty, to become a new country in its own right. A number of nationalities in Europe and elsewhere have succeeded in this goal over the past quarter century. The countries that were formed out of the former Soviet Union are prime examples.
尽管我把民族和族群之间的区别定义为完全不同的,但民族和族群最好被视为连续体的两端。有些民族更像族群,对控制它们的政府要求不高,而有些族群的行为有点像民族,对政府提出某些要求。在这个连续体的中间,总有一些群体无法被归类为民族或族群,它们具有任何信心。
Although I have defined the difference between nationalities and ethnic groups as if they were completely different from each other, nationalities and ethnic groups can better be thought of as end points on a continuum. Some nationalities are more like ethnic groups in not being very demanding of the governments that control them, and some ethnic groups behave something like nationalities by making certain demands of the government. There are always some groups in the middle of the continuum that defy classification as a nationality or an ethnic group with any confidence.
菲什曼还将民族 (nation) 与国家 (state) 区分开来。简单地说,国家可以理解为世界地图上与周围区域颜色不同的区域。国家是一个政治单位,对其内的所有人民拥有控制权并负有责任。民族 (nation) 是“很大程度上或日益”受某一特定民族控制的国家 (Fishman 1972 : 4)。由于使用了副词“很大程度上”和“日益”——民族的控制范围要有多广、增长速度要有多快?很明显,这意味着世界上属于民族的国家比通常用法所暗示的要少得多。相反,世界上的很多国家(可能大多数)从技术上来说根本不是民族国家,而是多民族国家。多民族国家是指境内有多个民族的国家。根据 Fishman 的定义,冰岛、朝鲜和韩国以及葡萄牙是极少数明确属于民族国家的例子。法国、德国和美国等大国是否从技术上来说属于民族国家则不太清楚。而其他主要国家,如加拿大、英国、中国和俄罗斯(即使在苏联解体后),显然不是民族国家。
Fishman also distinguishes a nation from a state. Oversimplifying, a state can be understood as an area on a world map that is a different color from the areas around it. A state is a political unit with control over and responsibility for all the people that live within it. A nation is a state that is “largely or increasingly” under the control of one particular nationality (Fishman 1972: 4). This definition is a bit fuzzy because of the use of the adverbs “largely” and “increasingly” – how extensive and how rapidly increasing does the nationality’s control have to be? It is clear that this means that far fewer of the world’s countries are nations than ordinary usage of the term would suggest. Instead, a large number, probably most, of the world’s countries are not technically nations at all, but rather multinational states. A multinational state is a country with more than one nationality within its borders. Among the very few clear examples of nations by Fishman’s definition are Iceland, North and South Korea, and probably Portugal. It is less clear whether such large countries as France, Germany, and the United States are nations by the technical definition. And it’s quite clear that other major countries, like Canada, the United Kingdom, China, and Russia (even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union), are not.
假设一个国家境内有多个不同的社会群体,如果他们都是族群而非民族,那么他们仍然可以是一个国家。这样的国家将是一个多民族国家,而不是多民族国家。稍加思考就会发现,通过允许控制程度和民族地位成为程度问题,菲什曼使他的概念在抽象上比在实际中清晰得多应用。
Hypothetically a country could have multiple distinct social groups within its borders and still be a nation, if they were all ethnic groups rather than nationalities. Such a country would be a multiethnic nation rather than a multinational state. A moment’s reflection will show that, by allowing both extent of control and status as a nationality to be matters of degree, Fishman makes his concepts much clearer in abstraction than in actual application.
那么,这一切与语言有什么关系呢?民族的一大特征是民族认同的象征意义。三个最重要的象征民族认同的关键因素是宗教、领土和语言。语言对民族来说往往至关重要,他们竭尽全力捍卫自己的语言。当然,少数民族也会说语言,但处于这一端的群体并不认为他们的语言对他们的身份至关重要,他们往往会在几代人的时间里放弃自己的语言,转而选择另一种似乎在政治或经济上更有利的语言。这是世界各地语言消失的主要机制。在过去两个世纪里,北美和南美数十种土著语言的消失就是一个例子,因为这些语言的使用者被英语或西班牙语取代。
So what does all this have to do with language? One characteristic of being a nationality is the importance of symbols of the national identity. Three of the most important symbols of national identity are religion, territory, and language. Language is very often of critical importance to nationalities, and they defend their languages with great energy. Of course, ethnic groups speak languages too, but groups at this end of the continuum do not see their language as critical to their identity, and they often give up their languages over several generations in favor of another language that seems more politically or economically advantageous. This is a major mechanism for language loss around the world. The loss of scores of indigenous languages in North and South America over the course of the past two centuries, as their speakers replaced them with English or Spanish, is an example.
菲什曼通过区分民族主义和民族主义,将语言作为民族象征的性质凸显出来。民族主义类似于民族,涉及一个民族的身份,他们对自己作为一个民族的认识,这个民族是统一的,不同于其他人。民族主义与统治的具体细节有关。民族主义(或民族)语言强调象征意义。民族主义语言(也称为官方语言)是用于执行政府任务的语言——打印税表、在立法机关辩论、管理军队、教育儿童。民族主义的考虑导致许多国家,特别是非洲和亚洲的国家,使用前殖民国家的语言作为至少一种官方语言。前殖民统治者的语言作为国语(民族身份的象征)是没有意义的,但在一个国家境内有多个重要民族,每个民族都有自己的语言的情况下,民族主义的考虑使得殖民语言不得不成为官方语言的最佳选择。选择多个民族之一的语言作为国家语言必然会冒犯其他民族,并有导致政治不稳定的风险。例如,如果尼日利亚选择三种主要语言之一作为国家语言,豪萨语、伊博语或约鲁巴语如果成为国语,将受到另外两种语言的严重影响。尼日利亚的官方语言是英语。
Fishman throws the nature of language as a symbol for nationalities into stark relief with his distinction between nationalism and nationism. Nationalism, akin to nationality, concerns the identity of a people, their awareness of themselves as a people unified among themselves and distinct from others. Nationism has to do with the nuts and bolts of governing. A nationalist (or national) language emphasizes the symbolic. A nationist language (also called an official language) is the language used to carry out government tasks – printing tax forms, debating in the legislature, running the military, educating children. Nationist concerns have led many countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, to use the language of a former colonial power as at least one of their official languages. The language of a former colonial ruler makes no sense as a national language (symbol of national identity), but in a situation where there are several important nationalities within a country’s borders, each with its own language, nationist concerns make the colonial language a reluctant best choice as an official language. To choose the language of one of several nationalities as the country’s national language is bound to offend the others and risk political instability. If Nigeria, for example, were to choose one of its three major languages, Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba, as a national language, there would be severe repercussions from the other two. The official language of Nigeria is English.
国语就像国旗,其价值更多的是象征意义而非实用性。民族语言或官方语言就好比国家铁路。铁路的主要目的是实用性,将人和货物从国家的一个地方运送到另一个地方。在极端情况下,国语甚至不必被使用,只要它代表了人民的身份。官方语言不必被人们喜爱,只要它能发挥作用,使政府得以运作。当然,国语几乎总是被使用,如果官方语言被人们喜爱——也就是说,如果国语和官方语言相同——那么国家无疑会变得更好。
A national language is like the national flag. Its value is more symbolic than functional. A nationist or official language is comparable to the national railroad. A railroad’s primary purpose is functional, getting people and goods from one part of the country to another. In the extreme, the national language does not even have to be spoken, as long as it represents the identity of the people. The official language does not have to be loved, as long as it does its job, making it possible for the government to function. Of course, national languages are almost always spoken, and countries are no doubt best off if the official language is loved – that is, if the national and official languages are the same.
马恩岛盖尔语是受人喜爱但未被使用的国语的一个例子,它是马恩岛的历史语言。最后一位马恩岛盖尔语母语使用者于 1974 年去世,尽管已有 1,000 多人学习该语言作为第二语言。1985 年,马恩岛议会宣布马恩岛盖尔语与英语一起成为有限的“官方”语言。法律使用了“官方”一词,但很明显,用 Fishman 的话来说,马恩岛盖尔语是一种国语。它在马恩岛议会日(国定假日)隆重地使用,一些马恩岛盖尔语和英语一起在议会发表演讲,但该语言几乎没有进一步的官方功能。有些马恩岛议会成员强烈呼吁增加其官方使用。
An example of a national language that is loved but not spoken is Manx Gaelic, the historic language of the Isle of Man. The last native speaker of Manx Gaelic died in 1974, although more than 1,000 people have learned the language as a second language. Manx Gaelic was declared a limited “official” language along with English by the Tynwald (Parliament) in 1985. The law uses the word “official,” but it is clear that the function of Manx Gaelic is as a national language, in Fishman’s terms. It is used ceremoniously on Tynwald Day, a national holiday, and some members of the Tynwald address the body using some Manx Gaelic along with English, but the language has very little further official function. There are members of the Tynwald who vigorously urge increased official use.
现在,我们可以理解本章介绍的一些案例了。库尔德人是世界上所有没有自己国家的民族中民族主义色彩最浓厚的民族之一。库尔德人居住在土耳其、叙利亚和伊拉克的部分地区,他们非常希望建立自己的国家,即库尔德斯坦。毫不奇怪,控制着库尔德斯坦领土的国家不愿意放弃这片领土。包括土耳其在内的这些国家希望尽可能地抑制库尔德民族主义的狂热。削弱库尔德语的地位是库尔德民族的有力象征。土耳其政府一度甚至禁止在公共场合使用库尔德语,甚至禁止用库尔德语唱歌。事实证明,这种做法过于挑衅,但政府仍然不希望看到土耳其大学教授库尔德语来加强这种语言。
We are now in a position to understand some of the cases that introduced this chapter. The Kurds are among the most nationalistic of all the world’s nationalities that do not control their own state. Kurds live in parts of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq and would very much like to establish their own state, which would be called Kurdistan. Not surprisingly, the states that control the territory that would make up Kurdistan are not willing to give that territory up. These states, including Turkey, want to damp down Kurdish nationalist fervor as much as possible. One way to do this is to weaken the status of the Kurdish language, a strong symbol of Kurdish nationality. At one time, the Turkish government went so far as to forbid the public use of Kurdish, even singing in it. That proved to be too provocative, but the government still does not want to see the language strengthened by being taught at a university in Turkey.
阿拉斯加尤皮克语使用者的情况在 Fishman 的术语中很容易理解。尽管他们人数不多,在很多方面可能是一个少数民族,但他们在坚持使用尤皮克语进行地方政府管理时,表现得非常像一个民族。地方立法机构使用的语言通常是基于民族主义的理由而决定的,英语至少在功能上与尤皮克语一样令人满意。但由于州一级的官方英语投票对他们的语言生存构成了威胁,Tuntutuliak 的公民被激励以民族主义的方式捍卫语言象征他们的群体认同。
The case of the Yup’ik speakers in Alaska is quite easy to understand in Fishman’s terms. Although they are a small population, probably an ethnic group in most respects, they acted very much like a nationality in insisting on using Yup’ik for local government. The language used by the local legislature ordinarily would be decided on nationist grounds, with English at least as satisfactory functionally as Yup’ik. But under the perceived threat to the survival of their language represented by the official English vote at the state level, the citizens of Tuntutuliak were motivated to nationalistically defend the linguistic symbol of their group identity.
为了理解中国和新加坡方言的情况,我们首先必须讨论语言政治中的另一个问题,即语言标准化。语言标准化是对语言最基本属性之一的政策回应:语言会变化并且会变化。正如我们在第 9 章中看到的那样,不同语言的使用者通常在发音、语法和词汇上有所不同,而在某些语言中,这些差异相当大。出于某些目的,例如教育和政府出版物的语言,一些国家认为有必要确定哪些变体是合适的。一些国家已经建立了语言学院来标准化和指导其语言的发展。法语的法兰西学院和西班牙语的西班牙皇家学院是其中最著名的两所,但也有针对希伯来语(在以色列)和克丘亚语(在秘鲁)等非欧洲语言的学院。
In order to understand the cases concerning dialects in China and Singapore, we will have to first take up another issue in the politics of language, language standardization. Language standardization is a policy response to one of the most fundamental properties of language: it varies and it changes. As we saw in Chapter 9, speakers of languages typically differ in their pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, and in some languages these differences are quite extensive. For some purposes, like education and the language of government publications, some countries feel a need to determine which of these variants are considered appropriate. Some countries have established language academies to standardize and guide the development of their languages. L’Académie française for French and La Real Academia Española for Spanish are two of the best known, but academies also exist for such non-European languages as Hebrew (in Israel) and Quechua (in Peru).
政府负责制定语言标准化决策,但私营部门的个人和机构也负责制定决策。报纸、杂志和新闻机构经常会制定编辑指南,指导如何在其版面中使用语言。这些标准由编辑和校对人员执行,并继续对出版物的数千名读者产生广泛的间接影响。事实上,您在本书中阅读的内容已经受到剑桥大学出版社编辑和校对人员的标准化影响!个人也可以为语言标准化做出贡献。英语出版商威廉·卡克斯顿拥有当时美国为数不多的几台印刷机之一。15 世纪下半叶,他在英国出版了许多书籍,通过编辑控制,他能够将自己的标准强加于当时出版的大部分书籍上(这反过来又影响了后来的语言)。有两个人编纂了非常有影响力的英语词典——英国的 Samuel Johnson 和美国的 Noah Webster。如果您在这些页面中看到诸如standardize和behavior之类的拼写时感到不快,那么您可以责怪 Noah Webster,因为他非常成功地将美国的英语拼写与英国的惯例区分开来。
Governments make language standardization decisions, but individuals and institutions in the private sector make them as well. Newspapers, magazines, and news agencies often produce editorial guidelines on how language is to be used within their pages. These standards are enforced by the editors and proof-readers and go on to have a broad indirect influence on the thousands of readers of the publication. In fact, what you are reading in this book has undergone the standardizing influence of the editors and proof-readers at Cambridge University Press! Individuals can contribute to language standardization, too. The English publisher William Caxton owned one of the very few printing presses in England in the latter half of the fifteenth century and, through his editorial control, was able to enforce his own standards on a large proportion of what was published at the time (which in turn influenced the language that followed). Two individuals constructed very influential English dictionaries – Samuel Johnson in England and Noah Webster in the United States. If you are annoyed at seeing spellings like standardize and behavior in these pages, you can blame Noah Webster for his quite successful effort to distinguish the spelling of English in the United States from the conventions in England.
到目前为止,我已经将语言标准化描述为从任何语言的本质变体中进行选择的过程,以便在语言的某些用法上实现统一。但是,标准语言的概念,就像我们讨论过的许多概念一样,具有超越这种实用考虑的象征意义。 大多数人毫无疑问地认为语言学院、词典和语法书中提供的语言是正确的,而其他变体是不正确的。例如,She is not ready包含在标准英语中,而另一种常用变体She ain't ready则不包含在标准英语中。几乎每个说英语的人——甚至那些真正说She ain't ready 的人——都确信,后一种形式不仅不适合在正式演讲和写作中使用,而且是错误的英语,任何人在任何情况下都不应该使用。此外,大多数说英语(或任何其他标准语言)的人都确信,在某个地方,有人已经确定标准形式在绝对意义上是正确的——任何理性的人,如果他们足够专业并遵循学术原则,都不可能发现标准语言可能与现在的样子有任何不同。不使用标准形式就是不使用真正的语言。
So far, I have described language standardization as the process of selecting from the variation that is the essence of any language in order to achieve uniformity in some uses of the language. But the notion of a standard language, like much that we have been discussing, has symbolic dimensions that go beyond such pragmatic considerations. Most people unquestioningly believe that the language presented by language academies and in dictionaries and grammar books is correct and the other varieties are incorrect. For example, She is not ready is included in standard English while another commonly used variant, She ain’t ready, is not. Virtually every English speaker – even those who actually say She ain’t ready – is convinced, not only that the latter form is not appropriate for use in formal speech and writing, but that it is incorrect English and should not be used at all, by anyone, under any circumstances. Furthermore, most people who speak English (or any other standardized language) are sure that somewhere, someone has determined that the standard forms are correct in an absolute sense – that it would not be possible for any reasonable person, if they were expert enough and followed scholarly principles, to find that the standard language could be anything different from what it is. To fail to use standard forms is to fail to use the real language.
语言学研究得出了完全不同的结论。仔细研究语言后,我们发现标准形式并不比其他形式好。没有科学依据表明She is not ready优于She ain't ready;就传达命题而言,一个形式与另一个形式一样好。英语使用者之所以确信She is not ready是正确的,而She ain't ready是不正确的,只是因为习惯上轻视ain't形式。标准化工具——语法书、词典和学校的语言使用教学——强化了这种习惯。语言学家称之为规范语言学,并将其与他们自己的语言研究方法进行对比,后者更像化学家研究化学结构的方式。语言学家研究语言在自然环境中如何发挥作用,受过教育的人对语言的使用并不被认为比受教育程度较低的人对语言的使用更重要或更不重要。
Linguistic research has led to an entirely different conclusion. When language is examined closely, it turns out that standard forms are no better than other forms. There is no scientific reason to prefer She is not ready over She ain’t ready; as far as communicating propositions, one will do quite as well as the other. English speakers are so sure that She is not ready is correct and She ain’t ready is incorrect only because it is customary to disparage the form ain’t. This custom is reinforced by the instruments of standardization – grammar books, dictionaries, and the teaching of language usage in schools. Linguists call this prescriptive linguistics and contrast it with their own approach to language, which is more like the way a chemist would study chemical structures. Linguists study how language works in its natural settings, and the use of language by educated people is not considered either more or less significant than usage by less educated people.
惯例决定了语言中可接受的内容。标准英语不允许使用“双重否定”。它通常受到谴责,理由是两个否定构成肯定,因此说“这个人什么都不知道”是不合逻辑的,除非你的意思是他确实知道一些事情。但逻辑上的论证根本站不住脚。在标准西班牙语中,需要两个否定词;没有其他方式来表达这个句子。
Convention determines what is accepted in languages. The use of “double negatives” is not allowed in standard English. It is generally condemned on the grounds that two negatives make a positive, so it is illogical to say, The guy doesn’t know nothing unless you mean that he does know something. But the argument from logic simply does not hold up. In standard Spanish, two negatives are required; there is no other way to say the sentence.
| 埃尔 | 蒂波 | 不 | 萨贝 | 沒有任何。 |
| 这 | 家伙 | 不是 | 知道 | 没有什么 |
| “这家伙什么都不知道。” | ||||
这是只是用标准西班牙语正常、正确地说“这家伙什么都不知道”的方式。现在,逻辑的基本规则,就像算术规则一样,是通用的——如果它们适用于英语,也应该适用于西班牙语——所以逻辑与自然语言中否定句法无关。英语和西班牙语只是在处理否定句方面有不同的惯例,就像篮球和棒球经理在比赛中有不同的着装习惯一样。事实上,在它们历史的不同时期,这两种语言都有相反的惯例。在西班牙语的历史时期,否定句中不允许出现两种否定形式,有时英语确实如此。例如,乔叟毫不犹豫地写道:
This is simply the normal, correct way to say The guy doesn’t know anything in standard Spanish. Now, the fundamental rules of logic, like the rules of arithmetic, are universal – if they hold for English, they should hold for Spanish – so logic has nothing to do with the syntax of negatives in natural languages. English and Spanish just have different conventions for handling negative sentences, just as basketball and baseball managers have different customary ways of dressing for games. In fact, at different points in their histories, both languages have had the opposite conventions. At points in its history, Spanish did not allow two negative forms in a negative sentence, and there were times when English did. For example, Chaucer had no qualms about writing:
| 他 | 内弗雷 | 然而 | 不 | 维列尼耶 | 恩 | 说。 |
| 他 | 绝不 | 然而 | 不 | 粗鲁 | 不是 | 说 |
| “他从来不会说粗鲁的话。” | ||||||
当然,今天,如果你在应该使用标准英语的地方使用双重否定(在乔叟的例子中是三重否定),你就会受到批评。但这就像篮球主教练穿着球员制服出现时会受到批评一样。这不是因为你没有使用真正的英语形式;而是因为你在社会习俗不允许的情况下使用它。
Today, of course, you would be criticized if you used a double (in Chaucer’s case triple) negative where standard English was expected. But that would be like the criticism a basketball head coach would get if he showed up in a player’s uniform. It would not be because you are not using a genuine form in English; it would be because you are using it in a situation where social conventions do not allow it.
举个例子也许能更清楚地说明这一点。在美国的主要职业体育项目中,球队教练或经理在比赛期间的着装有不同的惯例。美式足球队的教练会穿着休闲裤、休闲衬衫、如果天气需要的话穿夹克,也许还会戴一顶棒球帽。棒球队的经理穿的制服和球员的制服一样。在篮球或曲棍球比赛中,教练穿正装衬衫、打领带、穿西装。问哪项运动有正确的惯例是没有意义的。每种惯例在其自己的背景下都是正确的。当然,篮球教练像他的球员一样穿着短裤和无袖衬衫参加比赛是不正确的,如果他这样做,他会被嘲笑。同样,穿着西装打着领带上场的棒球经理也会看起来很可笑。但这些风格之所以“不正确”,只是因为各种运动已经发展出不同的风格。传统。
An example might make this point clearer. In major professional sports in the United States, there are different conventions for how the team coach or manager dresses during games. The coaches of an American football team will dress casually, wearing slacks, a casual shirt, a jacket if the weather calls for it, and perhaps a baseball-style cap. The manager of a baseball team wears a uniform styled just like the players’ uniforms. In basketball or hockey, the coach wears a dress shirt, tie, and suit. To ask which sport has the correct convention doesn’t make sense. Each convention is correct within its own context. Of course, it would be incorrect for a basketball coach to show up for a game wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt like his players do, and he would be laughed at if he did. Similarly, a baseball manager who came out on the field wearing a suit and tie would also look ridiculous. But these styles are only “incorrect” because the various sports have developed different traditions.
这“标准”一词本身并不像看上去那么简单。标准可以是编码的,也可以是非编码的。编码标准是那些已明确制定的标准。非编码标准尽管没有被刻意指定,但仍有效。我们以美国运动队教练比赛日着装为例,就是非编码标准的一个例子。没有人发布规定说篮球教练应该穿西装打领带(事实上,有少数教练不穿),或者说美式足球教练不能穿西装打领带。然而,着装标准总体上得到了遵守。
The term “standard” itself is not as straightforward as it may seem. Standards may be coded or uncoded. Coded standards are those that have been explicitly formulated. Uncoded standards are in force despite not having been deliberately specified. Our example of the game-day attire of US sports team coaches is an example of an uncoded standard. No one has published regulations that say basketball coaches should wear suits and ties (indeed, a few do not), or that American football coaches cannot. Yet the dress standards are by-and-large followed.
有许多编码标准的例子。例如,政府交通部门通常会指定允许驾驶汽车的速度上限。在美国,速度限制由各州制定。目前,州际公路系统(高速公路)的速度限制从每小时 60 英里(约 97 公里/小时)到每小时 70 英里(约 100 公里/小时)不等。在德克萨斯州人口稀少的几个地区,最高限速为 80 英里/小时(约 129 公里/小时),大多数州的最高限速为 70 英里/小时(约 113 公里/小时)或 75 英里/小时(约 121 公里/小时)。在欧洲,几个国家允许高速公路上的最高限速为 130 公里/小时(约 81 英里/小时)。因此,限速是编码标准(它们在交通法规中规定)。它们还有另外两个特性:(1) 它们是经过测量的——从技术上讲,如果你在法国高速公路上以 130.1 公里/小时的速度行驶,那么你就超速了,尽管这个标准不会得到如此严格的执行,(2) 它们是替代标准。除非您知道汽车行驶地适用的速度限制,否则您无法确定某辆车是否超速。事实上,如果您在 84 号州际公路上以 70 英里/小时的速度从爱达荷州驶往俄勒冈州,那么您就突然超速了,尽管您在爱达荷州的同一条道路上并没有超速。爱达荷州的州际公路限速为 75 英里/小时,而俄勒冈州的限速为 65 英里/小时。您是否遵守标准取决于现行的标准。
There are numerous examples of coded standards. For example, government transportation departments typically designate upper limits on how fast it is permissible to drive a car. In the United States, speed limits are set by the individual states. Speed limits on the interstate system (motorways) currently vary from 60 miles per hour (about 97 km/h) in Hawai‘i to 80 mph (about 129 km/h) in a few sparsely populated parts of Texas, with most states having maximum speed limits of 70 mph (about 113 km/h) or 75 mph (about 121 km/h). In Europe, several countries allow speeds up to 130 km/h (about 81 mph) on motorways. Speed limits, then, are coded standards (they are stipulated in traffic laws). They also have two other properties: (1) they are measured – technically, you are speeding in France if you are driving at 130.1 km/h on a motorway, although the standard wouldn’t be enforced that closely, and (2) they are alternative standards. You cannot determine if a given car is speeding unless you know what speed limit applies where the car is being driven. In fact, if you cross the state line from Idaho to Oregon driving at 70 mph on Interstate 84, you are suddenly speeding, though you weren’t, on the same road, in Idaho. The interstate speed limit in Idaho is 75 mph while it is 65 mph in Oregon. Whether or not you are following the standard depends on which standard is in force.
有些编码标准是无法衡量的。礼仪书中的规则是编码的、无法衡量的标准。其中之一可能是在介绍男女时先提到谁的名字。另一个可能是餐桌上餐具的摆放位置。这些被认为是人们应该遵循的标准。如果他们不这样做,那么他们的行为就被认为是不正确的。非编码标准几乎总是无法衡量的,比如美国体育教练在比赛日的着装。
Some coded standards are not measured. The rules in a book of etiquette are coded, unmeasured standards. One of these might be whose name is mentioned first if a man and a woman are introduced. Another would be the placement of silverware on a dining table. These are thought of as standards that people ought to follow. If they don’t, then their behavior is considered incorrect. Uncoded standards are almost always unmeasured, like how a coach in US sports dresses on game days.
标准作为最低标准。与未测量标准(尤其是未测量的编码标准)相关的一个有趣现象是,人们普遍认为它们是具有设定的最小值的测量标准(与速度法不同,速度法设定的标准是最大值)。在美国,2009 年 7 月的最低小时工资为 7.25 美元。如果工人的工资低于该工资,则其工资低于最低工资标准(对于联邦最低工资法未涵盖的工人类别,这是合法的)。通常使用类似的术语来表示违反未测量的标准,包括语言。因此,在未测量的编码标准的讨论中可以找到“不合标准”、“不符合标准”、“低于标准”等表达。
Standards as minimums. An interesting phenomenon connected with unmeasured standards, especially unmeasured coded standards is that they are popularly thought of as if they were measured standards with a set minimum value (unlike speed laws where the set standard is a maximum). In the US, the minimum hourly wage was set at $7.25 in July 2009. If a worker is paid less than that, she or he is being paid a subminimum wage (which is legal for categories of workers not covered by the federal minimum wage law). It is common to use similar terminology for violations of unmeasured standards, including language. So expressions like “substandard,” “not up to standard,” “below standard” can be found in discussions of unmeasured coded standards.
语言标准。大多数人认为语言标准是未经测量的编码标准,由大量的语法书和使用指南编码。对于英语,这些不同来源之间存在实质性的一致性,尽管在细节方面,它们可能对标准有所不同。任何违反这些规则但听起来像英语的语言使用都被认为是不合标准的——不够好,不能使用。当然还有其他标准;英语语法标准不适用于荷兰语,即使是像英式英语和美式英语这样相似的语言变体,标准也不同。大多数人会告诉你编码语言标准是唯一的标准,但社会语言学家承认非编码语言标准。这些用法在受人尊敬的社会成员的讲话中可以找到,即使它们不符合编码标准。至少对于美式英语,编码标准坚持介词不能留在从句末尾,并且 whom应该用在介词的宾语上,这一点在讲话中可以放心地忽略。受人尊敬的说话者可以说你是给谁买的生日贺卡?毫无顾忌地使用。实际上,大多数标准美式英语使用者会避免使用编码标准“你是为谁买的卡片?”,因为这种格式太过正式,尽管他们会毫不犹豫地承认这是“正确的”。 在非编码标准美式英语中,确立的一个习惯用法是在并列名词短语中使用“I” ,而不是宾语位置上的“me ”。美国总统奥巴马曾经说过:“布什总统慷慨地邀请我和米歇尔与他以及第一夫人劳拉·布什会面。”他受到了语言纯粹主义者的严厉批评,但是“我和米歇尔”这种用法相当常见,而且大多数时候都不会被注意到。许多社会语言学家会告诉你,你是为谁拿这张卡片的?布什总统慷慨地邀请我和米歇尔……虽然它们违反了编码标准,但它们仍符合非编码美式英语标准。对于社会语言学家来说,非编码标准更有趣、更重要,因为它们是标准制定者实际遵循的标准。
Language standards. Most people take language standards to be unmeasured coded standards, coded by a plethora of grammar books and usage guides. For English, there is substantial agreement among these various sources, though they may differ in what the standard might be in the case of small details. Any use of language that violates these rules but generally sounds like English is thought of as substandard – not good enough to be used. Of course there are alternative standards; English grammar standards do not apply to Dutch, and the standards differ even for language varieties as similar as British and American English. Most people would tell you that coded language standards are the only ones, but sociolinguists recognize uncoded language standards. These are usages found in the speech of respected members of a society even though they don’t conform to the coded standards. For American English, at least, the coded-standard insistence that prepositions not be stranded at the end of their clauses and that whom be used where it is the object of a preposition can safely be ignored in speech. Respected speakers can say Who are you getting that birthday card for? with impunity. Actually, the coded-standard For whom are you getting that card? would be avoided by most standard American English speakers as too stiffly formal, even though they would readily admit that it is “correct.” A newer feature that is becoming established in uncoded standard American English is the use of I in coordinated noun phrases, instead of me, in object position. US President Barack Obama once said, “Well, President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to meet with him and First Lady Laura Bush.” He was roundly criticized by language purists, but the Michelle and I kind of usage is quite common and goes unnoticed most of the time. Many sociolinguists would tell you that Who are you getting that card for? and President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I… conform to uncoded American English standards even though they violate the coded standards. And for sociolinguists the uncoded standards are more interesting and important because they are the standards that are actually followed by standard-setting speakers.
一旦认识到编码和非编码语言标准之间的差异,我们就可以考虑替代的非编码标准的可能性。我们可以在特定音乐类型的歌词中找到我所指的例子。吉米·马丁演唱的一首乡村音乐歌曲的歌词包括:
Once the difference between coded and uncoded language standards is recognized, we can consider the possibility of alternative uncoded standards. We can find examples of what I mean in the lyrics of particular genres of music. The lyrics of a country music song sung by Jimmy Martin include:
另一个男人夺走了我的爱人当我离开后,没有人会想念我
Another man he stole my darlin from meAnd there ain’t nobody gonna miss me when I’m gone
嘻哈乐队 Dirty Money 的歌曲《Hello Good Morning》由乐队成员 Dawn Richards 演唱,歌词如下:
And from the hiphop group Dirty Money, lyrics from “Hello Good Morning,” performed by group member, Dawn Richards:
这些女人都不肯给我支持25 在银行,我会在他们的屁股上呆着他们很生气因为这个婊子不停手
all these broads won’t give me my props25 on the bank I be stuntin on their assand they mad cause the bitch won’t stop
吉米·马丁 (Jimmy Martin) 几乎唱不出“当我离开时,没有人会想念我。”,而道恩·理查兹 (Dawn Richards) 唱不出“他们很生气,因为这个女孩不会停下来。” (事实上,“我会在他们屁股上呆呆地”这句歌词无法翻译成标准英语,除非非常尴尬。) 当然,这是因为这些歌词听起来不符合他们各自的流派。但为什么不呢?原因是艺术家们遵守他们所属和代表的社区的非编码语言标准。在这些社区中,无论非编码标准与编码或非编码标准英语规则相差多远,它们都要求这些语法形式。这些艺术家遵守的标准是非编码标准,是标准英语的替代品。他们并没有“达到”著名英语的标准——无论是否编码——他们只是跟随不同的标准。
Jimmy Martin could hardly sing, “And there isn’t anybody who is going to miss me when I’m gone.” and Dawn Richards couldn’t make it “And they are mad because this girl won’t stop.” (The line, “I be stuntin on their ass,” in fact, can’t be translated into standard English except very awkwardly.) This is, of course, because those lyrics wouldn’t sound authentic to their respective genres. But why not? The reason is that the artists are conforming to the uncoded language standards of the communities they are part of and represent. In these communities, the uncoded standards, without regard to how far they depart from the coded or uncoded standard English rules, call for precisely these grammatical forms. The standards these artists are conforming to are uncoded standards that are alternatives to standard English. They do not fail to “come up” to the standards of prestigious English – whether coded or not – they just follow different standards.
在第 9 章中,我们向您介绍了非裔美国英语,也称为黑人英语。AAE 有时会被政治化,最近一次是在 1996 年,当时美国的一个地方学区宣布将在课堂上使用黑人英语来教授标准英语。这在全国范围内引起了短暂的反应,大多数美国人,包括许多非裔美国人,都反对黑人英语是糟糕的英语,不合标准,不适合儿童教育。研究过黑人英语结构的语言学家发现这种反应并不出人意料,但却令人沮丧尽管如此。仔细分析后发现,黑人英语的某些方面确实比标准英语更能体现言语表达的细微差别。例如,标准英语有两种描述包括现在时的动作的形式,例如:
You were introduced to African American English, also called Ebonics, in Chapter 9. AAE has periodically become politicized, most recently in 1996 when a local school district in the United States declared that it would use Ebonics in the classroom in the process of teaching standard English. This created a brief national reaction, and the majority of Americans, including many African Americans, objected that Ebonics was bad English, substandard, and had no place in the education of children. Linguists who have studied the structure of Ebonics found this reaction to be not unexpected, but discouraging nonetheless. Under careful analysis, it actually turns out that some aspects of Ebonics allow finer distinctions in verbal expression than standard English does. For example, standard English has two forms that describe action that includes the present, exemplified by:
《牛津英语词典》暗中秉持语言学的观点,认为其职责是报告人们如何使用语言,而不是规定人们应该如何使用语言。因此,近年来,这本享有盛誉的词典中又添加了诸如doh (由电视节目《辛普森一家》中的荷马·辛普森推广)、gangsta和bling-bling 等词条。
The Oxford English Dictionary implicitly takes the point of view of linguistics that its duty is to report how people are using the language, not dictate how people should use it. Accordingly, in recent years such items as doh (popularized by Homer Simpson from The Simpsons television show), gangsta, and bling-bling have been added to the prestigious dictionary.
黑人英语有三种对立的形式来表达同一领域的含义:
Ebonics has three contrasting forms for the same area of meaning:
黑人英语中的“她工作”与标准英语中“她工作”的意思非常接近:“她是那种典型的工作型的人”;在某些情况下,它可能意味着“她有工作”。黑人英语中的“她工作”与标准英语中的“她正在工作”意思差不多;在说话时,被称为“她”的人 可以观察到正在工作。如您在第 2 章中看到的那样,语言在形态上如何表示时态或体是完全任意的,因此黑人英语形式和标准形式都不是优越的。但是,黑人英语句法为其使用者提供了标准英语所没有的额外动词体。不懂黑人英语句法的人一般认为She be workin是She is working的误写形式。事实上,在黑人英语中,She be workin 的意思与She workin完全不同。它的意思是她有时在工作,有时不工作,然后她又开始工作,然后她又停下来。在说出这句话的时候,她可能在工作,也可能没在工作。 She be workin表示间歇性动作,但在标准英语动词系统中完全缺失。如果标准英语使用者需要表达该意思,他或她必须求助于副词形式,如sometimes或generally或off and on。
She work in Ebonics is a close approximation of the meaning of She works in standard English: ‘She is the sort of person who characteristically works’; in some contexts it might mean ‘she has a job.’ She workin in Ebonics means much the same as She is working in standard English; at the moment of utterance, the person referred to as she could be observed to be working. As you saw in Chapter 2, how a language morphologically indicates tense or aspect is completely arbitrary, so neither the Ebonic nor standard forms are superior. However, Ebonics syntax gives its speakers an extra verbal aspect not available in standard English. She be workin is generally taken – by people who do not understand Ebonics syntax – to be a corrupted form of She is working. In fact, in Ebonics She be workin means something quite different from She workin. It means she’s at work sometimes, at other times she isn’t, then she is again, then she stops again. At the moment of the utterance, she may or may not actually be working. She be workin, with the meaning of intermittent action, is totally missing from the standard English verb system. If a standard English speaker needs to express that meaning, he or she must resort to an adverbial form, like sometimes or usually or off and on.
这些例子中出现的黑人英语语法和发音的其他一些特点是后缀的发音 [ ɪ n]标准拼写为 - ing,第三人称主语的现在时动词变格不带 - s后缀,以及使用现在分词形式如writin而不带be形式,如She writin。这些都是黑人英语的结构化部分,而不是英语说错的情况。后缀 [ ɪ n] 是标准英语中令人惊讶地频繁使用的替代发音,甚至受过良好教育的说话者也经常使用;在黑人英语中,它是主要发音,因此最好不带g拼写它。现在时第三人称形式是英语后缀规范化过程的延续,这一过程在黑人英语中已经完成,但在标准英语中尚未完成。在标准英语中,只有第三人称单数有后缀:
Some other features of the grammar and pronunciation of Ebonics that emerge in these examples are the pronunciation [ɪn] for the suffix standardly spelled -ing, the inflection of present-tense verbs with third-person subjects without an -s suffix, and the use of a present participial form like writin without a form of be as in She writin. Each of these is a structured part of Ebonics, not a failure to speak English correctly. The suffix [ɪn] is an alternate pronunciation used surprisingly often in standard English, even by the best-educated speakers; in Ebonics it is the dominant pronunciation and so it makes the best sense to spell it without g. The present-tense third-person form is a continuation of a process of suffix-regularization in English that is complete in Ebonics, but has not as yet been completed in standard English. In standard English, only the third-person singular has a suffix:
在黑人英语中,第三人称单数动词被规范化以匹配其余的范式。像She writin这样的形式很可能代表了收缩过程的延续。在标准英语中,可以说She is writing,或者通过删除拼写为i 的元音来收缩is,得到She's writing。黑人英语也有这两种形式,但还有一个额外的过程,即删除剩余的辅音,得到She writin。
In Ebonics, third-person singular verbs are regularized to match the rest of the paradigm. Forms like She writin most likely represent a continuation of the contraction process. In standard English, it is possible to say She is writing, or to contract is by removing the vowel spelled with i, yielding She’s writing. Ebonics has both these forms also, but has an additional process by which the remaining consonant is removed as well, giving She writin.
黑人英语还有另一种标准英语所没有的动词形式,即重音形式的been,发音类似bín。如果黑人英语使用者说 She bín marry,标准英语使用者会将其听成She's been marriage (略有错误) 。但在某些情况下,这两种形式的含义截然不同。约翰·里克福德(John Rickford,1999:23–25)向 25 名非裔美国人和 25 名白人美国人提出了下列问题:
Ebonics has another verb form that standard English lacks, the form been with stress, pronounced something like bín. If an Ebonics speaker says something like She bín married, a standard English speaker hears it as a (slightly incorrect) version of She’s been married. But the two forms have vastly different implications in some contexts. John Rickford (1999: 23–25) asked 25 African American and 25 white American speakers the following question:
有人问:“她结婚了吗?”另一个人回答说:“她已经结婚了。”你知道她现在已经结婚了吗?
Someone asked, “Is she married?” and someone else answered, “She bín married.” Do you get the idea that she is married now?
25 名非裔美国人受访者中,有 23 人回答“是”。除 8 名白人受访者外,其余均回答“否”。虽然标准英语形式“她已经结婚了”即使带重音,可能意味着她过去结过婚,现在仍然结着,但它产生了她不再结过婚的含义(第 4 章)。它通过格莱斯的第二条数量准则来实现这一点,该准则规定,在对话的某一特定时刻,你只能说必要的内容。如果她仍然结婚,那么最合作的方法是简单地回答“是”。如果回答是“她已经结婚了” ,大多数听众会认为说话者一定有理由给出更长、更具体的答案,并得出结论,原因是她不再结婚了。但听者不必接受这种含义,因此少数白人说话者不接受也就不足为奇了。
Of the 25 African American respondents, 23 answered “Yes.” All but 8 of the white respondents answered “No.” While the standard English form She’s been married, even with stress, might mean that she was married in the past and still is, it generates the implicature (Chapter 4) that she no longer is. It does so via Grice’s second maxim of quantity, which says you are to say no more than is necessary at a given point in the conversation. If she still is married, it would be most cooperative to simply answer “Yes.” If the response is She’s béen married, most hearers would assume that the speaker must have had some reason for giving the longer, more specific answer, and conclude that the reason is that she isn’t married any more. But the hearer does not have to take this implicature, so it’s not surprising that a minority of the white speakers do not.
但是黑人英语形式She bín marry使用了独特的远时体标记,重读bín,而标准英语根本没有这个标记。黑人英语中使用远时体意味着说话者表示动作或状态很久以前就开始了,很久以前以至于质疑它是愚蠢的,而且仍然有效。有时这更多的是说话者采取的修辞立场,而不是对遥远过去的字面承诺。无论如何,在这里,用标准英语来说,它的意思应该是:“你是认真的吗?她结婚很久了,我以为每个人都知道。”
But the Ebonics form She bín married exploits the unique remote-time aspect marker, stressed bín, that standard English simply doesn’t have. The use of the remote-time aspect in Ebonics means the speaker is representing the action or state as having begun long in the past, so long ago that it is foolish to question it, and as still in force. Sometimes this is more a rhetorical stance the speaker takes than a literal commitment to the distant past. In any case, here it would mean, in standard English, something like: ‘Are you serious? She’s been married so long I thought everybody knew it.’
我对黑人英语进行了如此详细的介绍,是为了证明即使是一种被广泛认为是不正确和“不合标准的”语言变体,经过仔细检查,也可以发现它具有标准语言所羡慕的表达能力的结构。
I have gone into this much detail about Ebonics to demonstrate that even a language variety that is widely assumed to be incorrect and “substandard,” on closer inspection can be shown to have structures that allow expressive possibilities a standard language might well envy.
“我会让他们失望”出自“Hello Good Morning”的这句话很难用标准英语表达,因为词汇( stuntin – “炫耀财富”)、ass 伪装结构(广泛使用且可能起源于黑人英语)——其中“X's ass”指的是 X,表达了对 X 的一定程度的蔑视,以及文中讨论的不屈折的动词方面。像“你会经常发现我在这些卑鄙的女人面前炫耀我的财富”这样的标准英语翻译只会最低限度地触及原文中的细微差别,但远不如黑人英语有效或完整。
“I be stuntin on their ass” from “Hello Good Morning,” is hard to render in standard English because of vocabulary (stuntin – ‘showing off one’s wealth’), the ass camouflage construction – widespread and possibly originating in Ebonics – where ‘X’s ass’ refers to X, expressing a degree of contempt for X, and the uninflected be verbal aspect discussed in the text. A standard English rendition like “You’ll often find me showing off my wealth in front of these contemptible women” would minimally touch on the nuances in the original, but far less efficiently or completely than in Ebonics.
句法学家对 ass 伪装结构进行了详细的技术分析,例如 Levine ( 2010 ),他指出,像黑人英语这样的未编码标准变体是语言分析的数据来源,其效果与编码标准一样好品种。
The ass camouflage construction has received detailed technical analysis by syntacticians, e.g. Levine (2010), showing that uncoded standard varieties like Ebonics are a source of data for linguistic analysis that is just as good as coded standard varieties.
北京政府禁止将《猫和老鼠》电视动画片配音成方言,其实是身份认同问题和标准语言问题的结合。前面提到,中国“方言”彼此之间差别很大,就像世界其他地方被视为不同语言的语言系统一样不同。中国中央政府继续推行长期政策,将普通话作为全国标准语言,这只是部分因为普通话被认为是正确的汉语。各种非标准汉语方言与处于民族和民族之间的社会群体有关。正如安卡拉政府不鼓励使用汉语方言一样, 库尔德语,北京政府希望将普通话作为民族团结的象征,并削弱方言作为潜在竞争群体认同的象征的权力。(普通话基于北京的官话,这并不奇怪。)但与此同时,政府表示,要求电视节目使用普通话,是因为它想为儿童提供良好的语言环境;使用 普通话(以及普通话的基础——普通话)被认为是受过教育和良好教养的证据。
The case of the Beijing government forbidding Tom and Jerry television cartoons to be dubbed into dialects is actually a combination of identity concerns and standard language concerns. It was mentioned earlier that the Chinese “dialects” are very different from each other, as different as linguistic systems considered separate languages in other parts of the world. When the central Chinese government continues its long-running policy of promoting putonghua as the standard language for the whole country, it is only partly because putonghua is taken as correct Chinese. The various nonstandard Chinese dialects are associated with social groups which are somewhere in the middle of the continuum between ethnic groups and nationalities. Just as the government in Ankara discourages the use of Kurdish, the Beijing government wants to promote putonghua as a symbol of national unity and to reduce the power of the dialects as symbols of potentially competing group identities. (Not surprisingly, putonghua is based on the Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing.) At the same time though, the government said that it was requiring television programming to be in putonghua because it wanted to provide a favorable linguistic environment for children; using putonghua (and Mandarin Chinese on which it is based) is considered evidence of education and good breeding.
新加坡政府以人物语法错误为由将该片评为NC-17级,更明显是出于标准和“正确性”的考虑。政府认为,影片中描绘的“新加坡式英语”是粗俗的语言,有损新加坡作为商业和金融中心的形象。多年来,政府一直在开展“说好英语运动”(SGEM),以鼓励人们说标准英语。总理在发起 SGEM 时表示,新加坡式英语让新加坡人显得不那么聪明。
The action of the government of Singapore when it placed an NC-17 rating on the movie, citing the poor grammar of the characters, was more clearly based on considerations of standards and “correctness.” In the government’s view, the “Singlish” portrayed in the film is bad language and bad for Singapore’s image as a commercial and financial center. For some years now, it has been conducting a Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) to encourage standard English. According to the prime minister at the initiation of SGEM, Singlish makes Singaporeans seem less intelligent.
到目前为止,语言标准化看起来更像是一种风格和惯例的无关紧要的问题:某些类型的口语,尤其是写作,要求一种语言的使用者都同意一组变体,这样这些类型的所有语言都能被所有人理解和所有人会发现这些(口头或书面)文本在审美上令人愉悦。但是,语言标准化的努力也可能有更险恶的一面。很明显,社会的控制阶层有权决定什么是标准,什么不是标准,而且标准形式总是与决策者使用的语言非常接近。我们可能会问,为什么有些人可以决定每个人都必须使用同一种语言,或者为什么人们应该被告知,“如果你想有所成就,你就必须或多或少地学会像我一样使用语言。”但如果这只是要求在特定情况下遵守某些惯例的问题——比如篮球教练无论是否愿意,都被要求穿着西装打着领带参加比赛——语言标准化将是相当无害的。当然,有权势的人可以制定标准,但如果要制定标准,就必须有人决定标准是什么。但正如我们所见,这不仅仅是一个简单的任意选择。新加坡英语和黑人英语使用者处于劣势,因为他们的日常英语与新加坡和美国的公认标准相差甚远,而更富裕的使用者的日常英语则不然。新加坡英语、黑人英语和上海话等汉语方言不仅被视为与标准语言不同,而且低于标准语言。这些英语或汉语不仅被视为过时,而且被视为对标准语言的腐蚀和贬低。简而言之,语言标准被视为最低标准,而不是其实际的 任意标准。
So far, language standardization looks like a rather innocuous matter of style and convention: some kinds of speech, and especially writing, require that users of a language all agree on one set of variants, so that all language in those genres will be understood by everyone and everyone will find these (spoken or written) texts esthetically pleasing. But it is possible to see language standardization efforts as having a more sinister side. It is clear that the controlling segments of a society are the ones who get to decide what is standard and what is not, and invariably the standard form is very close to the language the decision-makers use anyway. We might ask why some people get to decide how everybody has to use the same language, or why people should be told, “If you want to get anywhere, you have to learn to use language more or less the way I do.” But if it were simply a matter of being asked to conform to certain conventions in a particular context – like a basketball coach being expected to wear a suit and tie to games whether he wants to or not – language standardization would be pretty innocuous. Sure, powerful people get to set the standards, but, if there are going to be standards, someone has to decide what they are. But, as we’ve seen, it goes beyond a simple arbitrary choice. It’s not just that Singlish and Ebonics speakers are at a disadvantage because their everyday English is farther from accepted standards in Singapore and the United States than the everyday language of more privileged speakers. Singlish, Ebonics, and Chinese dialects like Shanghainese are treated as not just different from, but beneath the standard language. These kinds of English or Chinese are treated not only as being out of style, but as being a corruption and degradation of the standard language. In short, the standards of language are treated as minimum standards, instead of the arbitrary standards they actually are.
新加坡式英语是新加坡政府将电影评为 NC-17 级的英语。以下是小红帽故事的一部分,带有明显的新加坡式英语。
Singlish is the kind of English that provoked the NC-17 movie rating from the government of Singapore. The following is part of the story of Little Red Riding Hood, in a very marked kind of Singlish.
小 LED 灯从前,有一个小女孩,她带着小尾巴叫了起来。她想去阿玛家。早上她已经出门了一,她拿来一个篮子放花。她“做想”走很长很长,所以去拍摄镜头。哇!!!她没有有一只动物跟着她一马!她开心地走着直到她来到阿玛家。(新加坡式英语笑话)
Little Led Liding HootOnce upon a time hor, got one girl little led liding hoot. Shewant to go to Ah Mah’s house. Morning alleady she go outone, she got take come one basket to put flower. She “dowant” to walk long-long so go take shot cut. Wah!!! she donogot one animal follow her one hor! She happy-happy walkuntil she come to Ah Mah house.(Singlish Jokes)
您会发现,新加坡英语与标准英语有很多不同之处。如果您讲的是英语为母语的国家之一的标准英语,您可能会同情新加坡政府。但如果我们注意到新加坡英语是在与中文方言接触中发展起来的,就很容易看到它的许多特征的起源。中文在音系上没有 [l] 和 [r] 的区别。英语中拼写为 r 的音的发音在世界语言中相当不寻常,非母语人士学习英语会觉得很难。因此,新加坡英语有像led和solly 这样的发音也就不足为奇了。有些语言,包括中文,不需要词素来标记时态。因此,我们不应该惊讶于在新加坡英语中发现同样的事情;例如,她想去阿玛家,而标准英语会想要。表达性小品词lah和leh是这类英语的典型特征,它们提供了无法翻译的细微差别。hor形式,发音为 [h ɔ ],是另一种表达性小词,用于引起听者的注意或同意所说的话。在某些情况下(并非所有情况下),它可以粗略地翻译为“对吗?”语言学家研究了“Little Led Liding Hoot”的语言,发现它很有趣,并着手弄清楚它的工作原理。对于新加坡式英语的使用者来说,如果他们被迫放弃丰富多彩的英语,只说标准英语,他们会感到无可救药的束缚。
You can see that there are numerous departures from standard English. If you speak the standard English of one of the natively English-speaking countries, you might sympathize with the government of Singapore. But if we take note that Singlish developed in contact with dialects of Chinese, it is easy to see the origin of many of its features. Chinese doesn’t have a phonological distinction between [l] and [r]. The sound spelled r in English has a pronunciation that is quite unusual among the world’s languages and non-native speakers learning English find it difficult. So it is not surprising that Singlish has pronunciations like led and solly. Some languages, again Chinese is included, do not require morphemes to mark tense. So we should not be surprised to find the same thing in Singlish; for example, She want to go to Ah Mah’s house where standard English would have wanted. The expressive particles lah and leh are typical of this kind of English and provide nuances that are impossible to translate. The form hor, pronounced [hɔ] is another expressive particle for calling the listener’s attention or assent to what is being said. In some contexts (not all), it could be roughly translated ‘Right?’ Linguists look at the language of “Little Led Liding Hoot,” find it fascinating, and set about figuring out how it works. Speakers of Singlish, for their part, would feel hopelessly constricted if they were forced to give up their colorful variety and speak only the standard kind of English.
一些社区已经找到了一种方法,既可以拥有正式、标准的语言形式,又可以拥有更口语化的形式,而不会轻视口语化的形式。这种现象被称为双语。它最早被描述为Charles Ferguson 于 1959 年提出,最近这一思想被进一步发展艾伦·哈德森 (Alan Hudson) ( 2002 )。弗格森注意到,有些社区的语言有两种明显不同的版本,他称之为高地方言和低地方言。低地方言是人们在家里、家人和邻里中学习的普通口语。高地方言用于正式的演讲和大多数写作。它通常与低地方言截然不同,尽管两者在语言上是相关的。高地方言不是任何人的母语。在大多数情况下,人们必须在学校学习高地方言。双语社区中低地方言的特殊之处在于它们不会受到贬低。即使是社区中地位最高的人也总是在日常交流中使用低地方言。对高地方言和标准语言的态度之间的关键区别在于,没有人会想象每个人都应该避免使用低地方言而说高地方言。高地方言被认为比低地方言更纯粹、更正确,但每个人都明白它不适合日常讲话。那些实际上没有学习高级方言的人在某种意义上仍然认为高级方言是“他们的”方言,但他们并不以只说低级方言而感到羞耻。
Some communities have found a way to have a formal, standard form of their language alongside a more colloquial form, without the colloquial variety being held in contempt. This phenomenon is called diglossia. It was first described by Charles Ferguson in 1959, and the idea has recently been further developed by Alan Hudson (2002). Ferguson noticed that there were some communities that had two noticeably distinct versions of their language, which he called the high dialect and the low dialect. The low dialect is the ordinary spoken language that people learn at home, in their families and neighborhoods. The high dialect is used for formal speaking purposes and most writing. It is typically quite different from the low dialect, although the two are linguistically related. The high dialect is no one’s first language. In most cases, people have to be taught the high dialect in school. What is special about low dialects in diglossic communities is that they are not disparaged. Even the highest-status people in the community always use the low dialect for everyday communication. The critical difference between attitudes toward high dialects and standard languages is that no one ever imagines that everyone should avoid the low dialect and speak the high dialect. The high dialect is seen as purer and more correct than the low dialect, but everyone understands that it is not appropriate for everyday speech. People who do not actually learn the high dialect still consider it in some sense “theirs,” but they are not ashamed that they speak only the low dialect.
双语现象的两个明显例子是瑞士德语区和阿拉伯世界。瑞士德语方言与标准德语有很大不同,每个来自德语州的瑞士公民从小就说这些低地方言之一。大多数瑞士人后来在学校学习标准德语,但他们从未放弃他们的低地方言,这对大多数人来说是一件值得骄傲的事情。在阿拉伯语国家,古典阿拉伯语是高级方言,而每个国家的口语方言都是低级方言。古典阿拉伯语与口语方言有显著不同,很少有人能流利地说古典阿拉伯语。它用于宗教和文学目的,以及其他正式场合。与瑞士一样,阿拉伯语使用者并不认为他们的口语是古典阿拉伯语的败坏或可耻之事,尽管他们认为古典阿拉伯语更纯正。无论他们是否说古典阿拉伯语,所有阿拉伯语使用者都认为这是他们的语言。
Two clear examples of diglossia are found in German-speaking Switzerland and in the Arab world. The Swiss German dialects are substantially different from standard German, and every Swiss citizen from the German-speaking cantons grows up speaking one of these low dialects. Most Swiss later learn standard German in school, but they never give up their low dialect, which for most is a source of considerable pride. In Arabic-speaking countries, Classical Arabic is the high dialect, and the spoken dialects of each country are the low dialects. Classical Arabic is markedly different from the spoken varieties, and relatively few people learn to speak it fluently. It is used for religious and literary purposes, and in other formal settings. As in Switzerland, Arabic speakers do not regard their spoken language as a corruption of Classical Arabic or as something to be ashamed of, although they regard Classical Arabic as more pure. Whether they speak Classical Arabic or not, all Arabic speakers regard it as theirs.
世界上还有许多其他双语现象。在所有这些社区中,高等方言在某种意义上被认为比低等方言更好,但没有人认为说低等方言是缺乏智力的表现,也没有人主张放弃低等方言而全盘接受高等方言。双语社区的存在表明,有可能保留一种语言的变体用于正式用途,而不会将普遍使用的变体视为应被消除的坏语言。
There are numerous other cases of diglossia in the world. In all of these communities, the high dialect is regarded as in some senses better than the low dialect, but no one thinks speaking the low dialect is a sign of a lack of intelligence and no one ever advocates giving up the low dialect in favor of the high dialect for all purposes. The existence of diglossic communities shows that it is possible to reserve a variety of a language for formal uses without considering the generally spoken varieties as bad language that should be eliminated.
标准新加坡英语和新加坡式英语在语言上或多或少有些关联不像高地方言和低地方言那样。但它们并不构成双语现象。在一个双语社区里,像“说好英语运动”这样的活动不可想象。
Standard Singaporean English and Singlish are linguistically related to each other more or less the way high and low dialects are. But they do not constitute a case of diglossia. In a diglossic community, something like a Speak Good English Movement would be unthinkable.
在本章开头,您读到,中国方言彼此之间差异很大,因此在世界其他地方,它们可能被视为不同的语言。限制在土耳其教授库尔德语的理由之一是,库尔德语太原始,不是真正的语言。新加坡英语和黑人语也被指责不是真正的语言。双语中的高低方言据说截然不同,但它们被称为方言,而不是独立的语言。你可能会问,语言和方言之间有什么区别。
At the beginning of the chapter, you read that the Chinese dialects were different enough from each other so that they might be considered separate languages in other parts of the world. Part of the justification given for restricting the teaching of Kurdish in Turkey is that Kurdish is too primitive and not a real language. Singlish and Ebonics are also accused of not being real languages. The high and low dialects in diglossia are said to be distinctively different, but are called dialects, not separate languages. You might well ask what the difference is between languages and dialects.
第 9 章讨论了这个问题,但在这里进一步讨论将会很有用。一个立即浮现出来的标准是相互理解性。人们可以听懂他们所说的方言以外的其他方言,但却听不懂其他语言。但事实证明,这个标准根本行不通。首先,我们如何定义“理解”?如果我能听懂你所说的 80%,那么你和我说的是同一种语言的不同方言吗?如果我听懂了 75% 或 50%,那又会怎样?理解力取决于人们说话的速度、谈论的话题的熟悉程度,以及人们是在听别人说话还是在读东西。如果这还不够糟糕的话,在某些情况下,说 A 类语言的人可以听懂说 B 类语言的人,但说 B 类语言的人听不懂说 A 类语言的人。然后还有方言链现象。在方言链中,说方言 A 的人能听懂方言 B,说方言 C 的人能听懂方言 B,但听不懂方言 A。方言 A 和方言 C 是同一种语言吗?方言链不是假设的;它们在世界许多地方都很常见。因此,相互理解并不能完美区分语言和方言。
This question is addressed in Chapter 9, but it will be useful to amplify the discussion here. One criterion that immediately suggests itself is mutual intelligibility. People can understand a different dialect from the one they speak, but they can’t understand a different language. But this criterion turns out not to work at all. First, how do we define “understand”? If I understand 80 percent of what you say, do you and I speak different dialects of the same language? What if I understand 75 percent or 50 percent? Understanding varies depending on how fast people are speaking, how familiar the topic being talked about is, and whether one is listening to someone speak or reading something. If this were not bad enough, there are some cases in which speakers of Variety A can understand speakers of Variety B, but B-speakers cannot understand A. Then there is the phenomenon of dialect chains. In a dialect chain, speakers of Dialect A can understand Dialect B and speakers of Dialect C can understand B, but they can’t understand A. Are A and C dialects of the same language? Dialect chains are not hypothetical; they are common in many parts of the world. So mutual intelligibility doesn’t distinguish between languages and dialects perfectly.
关于语言和方言之间的区别,还有一种截然不同的观点,即方言的发展程度不如语言。如果一种语言已经标准化,并具有与之相关的文学传统,那么它就是一种语言;否则它就是一种方言。当有人写到世界某个地区的“语言和方言”数量时,媒体经常会用到这个定义。许多语言学家认为这种方法不可取,因为他们知道有数百种语言具有复杂而迷人的语法和发音特性,可与常见的欧洲语言相媲美。他们不愿意仅仅因为还没有人为这些系统编写语法或词典,或创作诗歌或文学散文书籍就否认这些系统是语言。无论如何,这个标准面临着与相互理解相同的问题。例如,2002 年出版了一本 31 页的 Shiwiar-西班牙语词典。(Shiwiar 是南美洲亚马逊地区的一种土著语言。)Shiwiar 是当时的一种方言吗?2001?也许一本词典是不够的;也许一种语言还需要其他标准化工具,如语法书,也许还需要文学作品。但是,在一种昔日的方言获得语言地位之前,这些要素中有多少必须存在?很难想象这些问题除了任意回答之外还能有什么答案。
Another, quite distinct, notion of the difference between languages and dialects is the idea that dialects are less developed than languages. If a linguistic variety has been standardized and has a literary tradition associated with it, then it is a language; otherwise it is a dialect. This definition is frequently used in the media when someone writes about the number of “languages and dialects” in a certain part of the world. Many linguists find this approach undesirable, because they know there are hundreds of languages with intricate and fascinating grammatical and pronunciation properties, comparable with anything you would find in the commonly studied European languages. They would be loath to deny these systems status as languages simply because no one has yet written a grammar or dictionary for them, or produced books of poetry or literary prose. In any case, this criterion faces the same sort of problem as mutual intelligibility. For example, a 31-page Shiwiar–Spanish dictionary was published in 2002. (Shiwiar is an indigenous language of the Amazon region of South America.) Is Shiwiar now a language when it was a dialect in 2001? Perhaps a dictionary is not enough; perhaps a language also needs other standardizing devices like grammar books and maybe literary works as well. But how many of these elements have to be present before an erstwhile dialect achieves language status? It is hard to imagine how any of these questions can be answered other than arbitrarily.
德国语言学家Heinz Kloss ( 1967 ) 将互通性标准与发展标准结合起来。他声称某些语言与其他语言差异很大,以至于它们作为语言的地位没有争议。他将这些语言称为分离语言(德语:Abstand )。其他语言则是发展语言(德语:Ausbau)。这些语言与其他语言足够相似,以至于它们的差异不足以保证它们具有语言(而不是方言)地位,但它们的社区已通过标准化和文学使用刻意发展它们,并以这种方式获得语言地位。例如,瑞典语和挪威语是由于发展而成为语言,西班牙语和葡萄牙语也是如此。某些语言,如法语和英语,由于分离而成为独立语言,但由于发展也符合不同语言的条件。
The German linguist Heinz Kloss (1967) combined the criterion of mutual intelligibility with the criterion of development. He claimed that some languages are so different from other languages that their status as languages is not in dispute. He called these languages by separation (German: Abstand). Other languages are languages by development (German: Ausbau). These languages are similar enough to other languages that their differences wouldn’t guarantee them language – rather than dialect – status, but they have been deliberately developed by their communities – via standardization and literary usage – and achieve language status that way. Swedish and Norwegian, for example, would be languages by development, so would Spanish and Portuguese. Some languages, like French and English, are separate languages by separation, but qualify as different languages by development as well.
语言学家通常使用语言和方言的第一个概念的松散版本——相互理解的(不完美)标准——来(粗略地)区分语言和方言。换句话说,有几组语言变体,它们的使用者彼此之间可以相当好地理解。同时,他们不太了解其他语言变体的使用者,或者根本无法理解。这些就是“语言”。在每种语言中都有语言子系统。该语言的使用者通常能理解该语言其他子系统的使用者,但也会注意到他们的言语很独特,或者在任何情况下都与他们自己的言语不同。这些就是“方言”。语言学家认识到,在许多情况下,不可能确定某种语言变体是另一种变体的“方言”还是一种独立的语言。尽管经过了一个多世纪的努力,语言学家从未找到一个相互理解或分离的定义,可以明确地告诉我们我们正在研究的是语言还是方言。尽管如此,他们发现这种区分语言和方言的方式对于他们的大多数工作。
Linguists generally work with a loose version of the first concept of language and dialect – the (imperfect) criterion of mutual intelligibility – to (roughly) distinguish languages and dialects. In other words, there are groups of linguistic varieties whose speakers understand each other reasonably well. At the same time, they don’t understand speakers of other linguistic varieties very well, or at all. These are “languages.” Within each of these languages are linguistic subsystems. Speakers of the language generally understand speakers of other subsystems of that language, but also notice that their speech is peculiar, or in any case different from their own. These are “dialects.” Linguists recognize that it is impossible, in many cases, to determine if a particular linguistic variety is a “dialect” of another variety or a separate language. In spite of more than a century of effort, linguists have never found a definition of mutual intelligibility or separation that can unambiguously tell us if we are looking at a language or a dialect. Nevertheless, they find this way of distinguishing languages and dialects sufficient for most of their work.
由于缺乏确定什么是语言或什么不是语言的明确标准,人们可以出于政治原因来决定什么是语言或什么不是语言。有时,人们使用的标准是,只有当语言系统具有足够的标准化和文学发展时,才授予语言地位。我们已经看到,一些土耳其人认为库尔德语不完全是一种语言,因为他们认为库尔德语在这方面还不够发达。同样,当弗朗西斯科·佛朗哥在西班牙掌权时,他宣布巴斯克语——一种与西班牙语完全不同的语言,经常被认为是一种分离语言的典型——只是一种农民方言。给出的理由再次是所谓的缺乏发展,但事实上巴斯克人是一个具有强烈认同感的难以驾驭的民族,他们渴望领土自治,就像今天的许多巴斯克人一样。弗朗哥希望通过降低他们的语言(他们身份的重要象征)的地位来削弱他们的独立意识。
The lack of definitive criteria for deciding what is or is not a language allows people to decide what is or is not a language for political reasons. Sometimes this is done using criteria that award language status only when the linguistic system has sufficient standardization and literary development. We have seen that some Turks regard Kurdish as not quite a language because they think it is not developed enough in this way. In similar fashion, when Francisco Franco held power in Spain, he declared Basque – a language completely different from Spanish and often cited as a clear example of a language by separation – to be a mere peasant dialect. The reason given was again the supposed lack of development, but it is also true that the Basques were a restive nationality with a strong sense of identity who desired territorial autonomy, as many Basques do today. Franco hoped to reduce their sense of independence by reducing the status of their language, a strong symbol of their identity.
有时,语言变体之间的相似性或相互理解性的模糊性作为标准也允许基于政治理由做出决定。中国长期以来一直认为其境内的相关语言系统是方言而不是语言,尽管它们之间存在相当大的差异。通过强调语言相似性而不是差异性,这降低了区域民族主义发展的危险,甚至到了控制汤姆和杰瑞在电视上说中文的地步。阿拉伯统一是阿拉伯世界的一个重要价值观,因此各种口语阿拉伯语从未被视为独立的语言,尽管像汉语一样,其中一些语言之间存在着相当明显的区分。
Sometimes the ambiguity of similarity or mutual intelligibility between linguistic varieties as a criterion also allows for decisions to be made on political grounds. China has long considered the related linguistic systems within its borders to be dialects rather than languages in spite of the considerable separation among them. This reduces the danger of the development of regional nationalisms, by emphasizing linguistic similarity over difference, even to the point of controlling how Tom and Jerry speak Chinese on television. Arab unity is a strong value in the Arab world, so the various kinds of spoken Arabic are never considered separate languages although, like the Chinese case, there is quite marked separation among some of them.
在南非,决策结果却截然相反。种族隔离制度即将结束时,有人提议简化官方处理语言的方式,将恩古尼语族的四种语言和索托语族的三种语言视为单一语言,以达到某些目的。这两个族群内部的语言之间几乎没有区别,而且相互理解程度很高。然而,这项提议从未付诸实施,部分原因是各个语言是不同群体身份的象征。如今,种族隔离结束后的南非有 11 种官方语言,包括 7 种恩古尼语和索托语。
In South Africa, the decision went somewhat the other way. When the apartheid system was ending, a proposal was offered to simplify the way that languages would be dealt with officially, by considering the four languages of the Nguni group and the three languages of the Sotho group as single languages for some purposes. There is relatively little separation among the languages within each of these two groups and a high level of mutual intelligibility. Nevertheless, this proposal never got off the ground, partly because the individual languages are symbols of different group identities. Today, there are eleven official languages in post-apartheid South Africa, including the seven Nguni and Sotho languages.
有时,根据政治环境的不同,语言系统可以从一种语言变成一种方言,然后再变回一种语言。塞尔维亚语和克罗地亚语就是一个特别突出的例子。在过去的 150 多年里,人们一直在争论塞尔维亚语和克罗地亚语是不同的语言还是塞尔维亚-克罗地亚语的一个变种。很明显,两者之间几乎没有区别——主要是词汇上的差异和不同的书写系统;克罗地亚语几乎总是用拉丁字母书写,而塞尔维亚语则大多用西里尔字母书写。在十九世纪和二十世纪初,这两个语言一直在刻意独立发展。二战后,在约瑟夫·布罗兹·铁托的领导下,南斯拉夫联邦人民共和国成立。整个新南斯拉夫都认为统一是可取的,并据此做出了关于语言的决定。1954 年的一项协议呼吁出版统一的“塞尔维亚-克罗地亚语/克罗地亚-塞尔维亚语”正字法和词典,人们开始使用塞尔维亚-克罗地亚语。随着 20 世纪末南斯拉夫解体,塞尔维亚和黑山与克罗地亚成为独立国家,塞尔维亚和克罗地亚再次被视为不同的语言。
Sometimes a linguistic system can go from being a language to being a dialect and back to being a language again, depending on the political environment. One particularly dramatic example of this is the case of Serbian and Croatian. For the past 150 years or more there has been controversy over whether Serbian and Croatian are separate languages or whether they are varieties of a single Serbo-Croatian language. It is clear that there is very little separation between the two – mostly some vocabulary differences and different writing systems; Croatian is almost always written in the Latin alphabet, while Serbian is mostly written in Cyrillic. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the two were undergoing deliberate separate development. Then the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was formed after World War II under Josep Broz Tito. Unity throughout the new Yugoslavia was considered desirable and decisions about language were made accordingly. A 1954 agreement called for the publication of a unified “Serbo-Croatian/Croato-Serbian” orthography and dictionary, and people began to speak of a Serbo-Croation language. With the dissolution of Yugoslavia at the end of the twentieth century and the formation of Serbia-Montenegro and Croatia as separate states, Serbian and Croatian are again considered separate languages.
在美国,语言政治的一个表现是修改宪法或至少通过联邦法律将英语定为美国官方语言的运动。美国的两个事实在一定程度上影响了关于语言的辩论。首先,没有立法指定的官方语言。实际上,英语是联邦政府绝大多数活动的官方语言。政府,但联邦层面没有法律规定英语是官方语言。这意味着也没有法律规定的语言权利;私营部门或政府机构的任何人仅基于语言歧视他人并不违法。其次,美国没有基于单一祖先群体成员身份的民族意识。美国自诩为“移民国家”,欢迎来自其他国家的人,但要求他们放弃对原籍国的忠诚,或放弃美国以外的任何身份。由于历史上没有美国人都是同一祖先的后裔,也没有美国人信仰同一宗教,因此人们倾向于寻找另一种国籍象征。对一些人来说,英语就是那个象征。
In the United States, one manifestation of the politics of language is the movement to amend the constitution or at least pass a federal law making English the official language of the United States. Two facts about the United States partially shape debates about language. First, there is no legislatively designated official language. In practice, English is the functioning official language for the vast majority of the activities of the federal government, but there is no law at the federal level that says English is official. This means that there are no legislated language rights, either; it is not against the law for anyone in the private sector, or any agency of the government, to discriminate against people on the basis of language alone. Second, the United States does not have a sense of nationality based on membership of a single ancestral group. It prides itself on being “a nation of immigrants” that welcomes people from other countries, but they are then expected to give up allegiances to their countries of origin or to any identity other than American. Since there is no historic sense that Americans are all descended from the same ancestors, or that Americans share the same religion, there is a tendency to seek another symbol of nationality. For some, the English language is that symbol.
对广泛使用除英语以外的其他语言的容忍度因历史情况而异。大量移民的涌入引发了人们对移民学习英语必要性的重视。1900 年左右,人们强烈强调美国化,包括学习英语,当时人们认为东欧和南欧的移民大量涌入。在 20 世纪 60 年代和 70 年代初,人们对身份多样性的容忍度更高。人们更倾向于追寻自己的根源,接受意大利裔美国人和波兰裔美国人等连字符身份,以及与当时的民权运动相关的非裔美国人(尽管这个词当时还没有被广泛使用)。有时,他们也会断断续续地尝试学习其移民祖先的语言。国会通过了《双语教育法案》,为双语儿童的教育提供联邦资金。这些资金主要用于过渡性双语教育项目,在这些项目中,双语儿童在学习英语的同时学习其第一语言(非英语)的科目。国会还通过了《投票权法案》,该法案规定在某些情况下可以使用英语以外的语言进行投票。
Toleration for the widespread maintenance of languages other than English varies with historical circumstances. Large influxes of immigrants spark an emphasis on the necessity for immigrants to learn English. An emphasis on Americanization, including learning English, was strong around 1900, when there was a perceived influx of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. In the 1960s and early 1970s, there was a greater tolerance for identity diversity. People were more inclined to look to their roots and take on hyphenated identities like Italian-American and Polish-American, as well as African American (though that term was not widely used then), associated with the civil rights movement that went on at the same time. This was sometimes accompanied by more-or-less desultory attempts to learn the language of their immigrant ancestors. Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act providing federal funding for the education of bilingual children. These funds were largely used for transitional bilingual education programs, in which bilingual children were taught subjects in their first (non-English) language while they were learning English. Congress also passed the Voting Rights Act, which provided for ballots in languages other than English under some circumstances.
随着 20 世纪末移民人数再次增加,人们也更加重视成为美国人和说英语。自 20 世纪 70 年代初以来,每年都有立法出台,将英语定为美国的官方语言。到目前为止,还没有通过任何联邦官方语言立法,但 50 个州中有 28 个州已经立法或通过宪法修正案,将英语定为这些州的官方语言。大多数州的官方语言立法都是在 1980 年后通过的。其中之一的夏威夷有两种官方语言,英语和夏威夷语。伊利诺伊州于 1923 年通过了一项法律,将“美国”语言定为该州的官方语言。1969 年,该法律被废除,英语成为伊利诺伊州的官方语言。
As immigration seemed to grow again at the end of the twentieth century, emphasis on being American and speaking English increased also. Every year since the early 1970s legislation has been introduced to make English the official language of the United States. So far no federal official language legislation has passed, but 28 of the 50 states have legislation or constitutional amendments making English official in those states. The majority of state official language legislation has been passed since 1980. One of these, Hawai‘i, has two official languages, English and Hawai‘ian. Illinois passed a law in 1923 making “American” the state’s official language. In 1969, that law was repealed and English was made official in Illinois.
大多数美国人都很乐意让原住民继续使用他们的语言,无论他们选择什么目的,甚至是官方目的。请注意,夏威夷已明确将其土著语言定为官方语言。正如我们所看到的,尽管阿拉斯加对英语进行了官方修订,但通图图利亚克政府仍可以使用尤皮克语进行城镇事务。即使是阿拉斯加官方英语法的支持者也表示,他们打算将土著语言豁免,只适用于移民语言。情况并非总是如此。在上个世纪,官方政策严重压制美国原住民语言。但在 1990 年,国会通过了《美国原住民语言法案》,保留了美国原住民使用和发展其语言的权利,并要求州官方语言法必须与《美国原住民语言法》保持一致。该法在国会两院以口头表决方式通过,无人反对,并由乔治·H·W·布什总统签署成为法律。然而,没有为保护土著语言的项目提供资金法律。
Most Americans are quite content for native peoples to keep using their languages for whatever purposes they choose, even official ones. Note that Hawai‘i has made its indigenous language explicitly official. As we saw, it is possible for the government of Tuntutuliak, in spite of Alaska’s official English amendment, to conduct town business in Yup’ik. Even supporters of the official English law in Alaska say they intend that it should exempt indigenous languages and apply only to immigrant languages. This was not always the case. Well into the last century, official policy was severely oppressive of native American languages. But in 1990, Congress passed the Native American Languages Act, preserving the right of Native American peoples to use and develop their languages and requiring that state official language laws must be consistent with the Native American Languages Act. The law passed by a voice vote in both Houses of Congress without opposition and was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush. However, no funding for programs to preserve indigenous languages was provided by the law.
除极少数例外(《美国原住民语言法案》就是其中之一)外,美国没有保护语言权利的法律。各州。因此,私营部门以各种方式应对非英语语言使用者的存在。在华盛顿特区,一些雇用大量中美洲移民的公司和政府机构要求只会说英语的主管至少学习一些西班牙语单词和短语。其他雇主也曾因员工使用非英语语言而被解雇,不仅是在他们执行工作或与客户交谈时,而且在休息时甚至在下班时在街上交谈时也是如此。那些认为自己因语言而受到歧视的人在技术上没有法律追索权。一种策略是辩称歧视实际上不是语言问题,而是基于他们的国籍,这是违法的。这种策略在特定情况下是否会成功尚不确定。平等就业机会委员会 (EEOC) 是政府行政部门的一个机构,历来反对一刀切的规则,要求在工作场所只能使用英语,理由是它违反了禁止基于国籍歧视的规定。另一方面,如果雇主有正当的商业理由制定这些规则,并且员工虽然说另一种语言,但能够熟练使用英语,那么法院就会支持这些规则。目前还没有判例进入最高法院,因此判例法并不具有权威性。
With very few exceptions (the Native American Languages Act is one), there are no laws preserving language rights in the United States. As a result, the private sector responds in various ways to the presence of speakers of languages other than English. In the Washington, DC area some companies and government agencies that employ considerable numbers of Central American immigrants are asking their monolingual English supervisors to learn at least some words and phrases in Spanish. Other employers have been known to fire workers for speaking in a language other than English, not only when they are carrying out their jobs or talking with clients or customers, but when talking to each other on breaks or even on the street as they are leaving work. People who feel they are discriminated against based on language technically have no legal recourse. One strategy is to argue that the discrimination is not really about language, but based on their national origin, which is against the law. Whether this strategy will be successful in a particular case is uncertain. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), an agency of the Executive Branch of the government, has historically opposed blanket rules requiring that only English be used at the workplace on the grounds that it violates prohibitions against discrimination based on national origin. The courts, on the other hand, have upheld such rules when employers have legitimate business reasons for the rules, and the employees are fully competent in English, even though they speak another language. No test case has yet reached the Supreme Court, so case law is not definitive.
抵制英语专用政策的另一个依据是宪法保障言论自由。亚利桑那州最高法院(不是美国最高法院)以言论自由为由,拒绝了亚利桑那州早先的官方英语修正案(不是现在生效的修正案);目前的修正案经过了修订,以满足言论自由方面的要求。阿拉斯加的一名法官曾裁定阿拉斯加官方英语法违宪,因为它侵犯了言论自由。目前尚不清楚要求使用英语在多大程度上在法律上侵犯了言论自由。
Another basis for resisting English-only policies is the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech. The Arizona State Supreme Court (not the United States Supreme Court) cited freedom of speech as one reason why an earlier Arizona official English amendment (not the one in force today) was not allowed to stand; the current amendment underwent revisions to meet freedom-of-speech concerns. At one point a judge in Alaska also ruled that the Alaska official-English law was not constitutional because it violated freedom of speech. It is still not clear the degree to which requiring the use of English is legally a violation of freedom of speech.
显然,英语在美国没有受到任何其他语言的威胁。那么,为什么有些美国人想要强制使用英语而排斥其他语言呢?当有人提议将英语作为政府的唯一官方语言时,通常会提到民族主义的原因。制作官方文件、印刷选票和以多种语言提供服务效率低下且成本高昂。多语言公共教育成本高昂,反对者表示,所谓的最终目标是培养儿童流利英语水平的人才尚未实现。私营部门的雇主认为,只要求员工在工作中会说英语是合理的,因为使用其他语言会降低只会说英语的员工的士气,因为他们担心自己会受到他们听不懂的语言的嘲笑,这可能会影响安全,或者会赶走客户。这些论点都有道理,但似乎民族主义认同才是推动这场运动的本能动力。
It’s obvious that English is not threatened by any other language in the United States. Why, then, do some Americans want to enforce the use of English to the exclusion of other languages? Where English has been proposed as the only official language of government, nationist reasons are generally cited. Producing official documents, printing ballots, and providing services in multiple languages is inefficient and expensive. Multilingual public education is expensive, and opponents say the stated ultimate goal of producing children fluent in English is not being achieved. Private-sector employers justify requiring only English at work on the grounds that the use of other languages lowers the morale of monolingual English speakers, who suspect they are being ridiculed in languages they can’t understand, that it might interfere with safety, or that it drives away customers. These arguments have merit, but it seems that nationalist identity is what drives the movement at a gut level.
一个问题是,双语教育并未被广泛视为一种可能的解决方案。大多数美国人只会说英语,单语教育对他们来说似乎很正常。许多美国人在高中或大学学习过外语,但并没有精通这些语言,尽管他们可能在语言课上取得了高分。这让美国人产生了一个模糊的想法,即大多数人一次只能掌握一种语言。当然,每个人都知道有些人能说两种或两种以上的语言,但他们通常被视为非常聪明。如果被逼问,毫无疑问大多数美国人都会相信,人们可以学好英语,同时还能流利地说他们的母语,但人们仍然模糊地认为,学好英语就意味着忘记你可能知道的任何其他语言。例如,如果你知道一个拉丁裔人能流利地说西班牙语,你很可能会认为他/她不会流利地说英语。大多数美国人根本不会想到美国有这么一个画面:大量使用西班牙语和英语、越南语和英语、纳瓦霍语和英语的双语人士,如果美国人真的这么想,那么这将对国家认同构成威胁。说一门流利的非英语语言似乎意味着你不会说英语,这意味着你还没有完全接受美国身份,如果强烈的美国国家认同对你来说很重要,那么这种想法会令人不安。
One problem is that bilingualism is not widely viewed as a possible solution. The majority of Americans speak only English, and monolingualism seems normal to them. Many Americans have studied foreign languages in high school or college, but have not become proficient in them, even though they may have received high grades in language classes. This leaves Americans with the vague idea that most people can have only one language at a time. Of course, everyone knows that there are people who speak two or more languages well, but they are usually seen as exceptionally intelligent. If pressed, no doubt most Americans could be convinced that it would be possible for people to learn English well and still be fluent speakers of their heritage language, but the vague assumption persists that learning English well entails forgetting any other language you might know. If you know an individual Latino is a fluent speaker of Spanish, for instance, you are likely to assume that he/she is not a fluent speaker of English. A picture of America with large communities of bilingual speakers of Spanish and English, Vietnamese and English, or Navajo and English just doesn’t occur to most Americans, and if it does, it presents a threat to national identity. To be fluent in a non-English, language seems to mean you aren’t fluent in English, and that means you have not fully accepted an American identity, a disturbing thought if a strong American national identity is important to you.
事实上,绝大多数美国移民在三代之内就变成了只会说英语的语言。此外,这一现象也适用于最近来自拉丁美洲或亚洲的移民,就像 1900 年左右来自欧洲的移民一样。
In fact, the vast majority of immigrants to the United States do become monolingual in English within three generations. Furthermore, this applies as well to more recent immigrants from Latin America or Asia as it did to immigrants from Europe around 1900.
为了更好地理解这一点,我们应该思考一下,在美国维持一个非英语语言使用者群体需要什么。在美国,了解和使用英语无疑是一个巨大的优势,因此,维持另一种语言必须需要特殊的环境和动机。其中之一就是持续的移民。随着上一代人的后代转向英语,持续的移民为非英语语言的使用者提供了新的语言。这样一来,美国就总有人说非英语语言,但他们中的大多数人并不是在美国出生的。这就像一个湖泊,一条溪流汇入湖泊,另一端则流向另一条溪流。湖里总是有水,只是水不一样而已。
In order to understand this better, we should think about what it takes to maintain a community of speakers of a language other than English in the United States. It is certainly a huge advantage to know and use English in the US, so to maintain another language must require particular circumstances and motivation. One of these is continuing immigration. Continuing immigration supplies new speakers of a non-English language as the descendants of previous generations switch to English. In that way, there are always people who speak a non-English language in the United States, but most of them weren’t born there. This is like a lake that is fed by one stream while being drained by another stream at the other end. The lake always has water in it, it’s just not the same water.
促使人们保持双语的第二种情况是,一群人的身份认同感更具有民族性而非种族性,语言是该民族性的重要象征。他们可能有双重民族认同,认为自己是美国人,也是其他人。这种背景也需要一个有凝聚力的社区,这个社区在某种程度上与其他美国人是分开的,要么无论是从地理上还是社会上来看,这样的社区在自己的社区内会使用非英语语言,但在与更广泛的社区互动时会说英语。
A second circumstance motivating bilingual maintenance is for a group of people to have a sense of identity more characteristic of a nationality than an ethnic group, and for language to be a crucial symbol of that nationality. They may have a dual national identity, thinking of themselves as American as well as something else. This context also requires a cohesive community that is somewhat separated from other Americans, either geographically or socially. Such a community will use the non-English language within their own community, but speak English for interactions with the wider community.
在美国,使用英语以外语言的最主要社会群体是拉丁裔。超过一半的在家使用非英语语言的美国人讲西班牙语。由于持续不断的移民,西班牙语在拉丁裔社区中大部分地区仍然存在。就像之前的其他移民一样,定居美国的拉丁裔在第二代就能够说一口流利的英语,而到第三代就不再说西班牙语了。根据 2000 年美国人口普查的数据计算,超过 95% 的 18 岁或以上的人口能够说一口流利的英语。“流利”的英语使用者是指只说英语(绝大多数)的人,或者是在家使用其他语言,但表示自己也能说“很好”或“非常好”英语的人。5 至 17 岁人群中,英语流利使用者的比例甚至更高,超过 97%。显然,大多数移民正在迅速学习英语。
The most prominent social group in the United States that speaks a language other than English are Latinos. More than half of those Americans who speak a non-English language at home speak Spanish. For the most part, Spanish persists in Latino communities because of continuing immigration. Just like other immigrants before them, Latinos who settle in the United States become fluent in English in the second generation and lose Spanish by the third generation. Calculations from data in the 2000 US Census show that over 95 percent of the population eighteen years old or older is fluent in English. “Fluent” speakers are people who speak only English (the vast majority), or people who speak some other language at home, but report that they can also speak English “well” or “very well.” The percentage of fluent speakers is even higher for people aged five to seventeen, over 97 percent. Clearly, most immigrants are rapidly picking up English.
两项针对美国拉美裔的电话调查为从西班牙语到英语的快速转变提供了更直接的证据。第一次调查由《 华盛顿邮报》、亨利·J·凯泽家庭基金会和哈佛大学于 1999 年夏天进行(Goldstein 和 Suro 2000)。调查发现,73% 的第一代拉美移民在家中只说西班牙语或说西班牙语多于说英语,6% 的人只说或主要说英语(其余人两种语言都用)。然而,78% 的第三代拉美移民后代全部或主要使用英语,只有 1% 的人全部使用西班牙语或说西班牙语多于说英语。
More direct evidence of the rapid transition from Spanish to English comes from two telephone surveys of Latinos in the United States. The first was conducted by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University in the summer of 1999 (Goldstein and Suro 2000). It found that 73 percent of first-generation Latino immigrants spoke only Spanish or more Spanish than English at home and 6 percent spoke only or mostly English (the rest used both languages equally). Yet 78 percent of third-generation descendants of Latino immigrants used all or mostly English and only 1 percent used all Spanish or more Spanish than English.
2002 年,皮尤拉美裔中心和亨利·凯泽家庭基金会进行了一项类似的电话调查,结果基本与上述结果一致(皮尤拉美裔中心/亨利·凯泽家庭基金会2004:3)。调查发现,72% 的第一代拉丁裔移民以西班牙语为主,而 4% 的人声称以英语为主。其余受访者均能讲双语。第三代及以后的受访者中,有 78% 表示自己以英语为主,没有受访者表示自己以西班牙语为主。
In 2002, the Pew Hispanic Center and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a similar telephone survey that essentially replicated those results (Pew Hispanic Center / Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation 2004: 3). It found that 72 percent of first-generation Latino immigrants were Spanish-dominant while 4 percent claimed to be English-dominant. The remainder were bilingual. A full 78 percent of the third generation or beyond said they were English-dominant, with no respondents claiming Spanish dominance.
显然,西班牙语在美国的保留主要是由于持续的移民,而不是出生在美国的拉美裔不愿意改用英语。如果你认为拥有双语公民对一个国家来说是一个优势,那么拉美裔失去西班牙语的速度可能是问题所在,而不是他们可能不会学习英语。
It seems clear that the maintenance of Spanish in the United States is mostly due to continuing immigration, not a reluctance on the part of Latinos born in the United States to switch to English. If you think having bilingual citizens is an advantage to a country, the speed with which Latinos lose Spanish might be the problem, not that they might not learn English.
另一种双语保持社区则少见得多。一些土著居民保留了他们的非英语语言,因为他们有强烈的民族认同感。我们已经遇到的一个例子是阿拉斯加的尤皮克语社区。然而,在过去 100 多年里,土著语言正在迅速消亡,因为土著语言使用者降低了非英语社区语言作为身份象征的重要性。其他例子是基于宗教信仰的社区。老派阿米什人自美国独立战争前就一直生活在现在的美国。他们拒绝电力和汽车等现代便利设施,在与外来人打交道时很友好,但小心地与他们保持距离。阿米什社区几代人都保持着双语。他们在家里和礼拜时使用一种俗称“宾夕法尼亚荷兰语”的德语。他们使用英语,不仅用于与社区外的联系,也作为教育语言。这些社区经营自己的教区学校,因为他们怀疑他们的孩子会在公共场合学到什么价值观学校。虽然这些学校是由社区为社区的孩子开办的,但教学语言是英语。
The other kind of bilingual maintenance community is much rarer. Some indigenous populations maintain their non-English languages because they have a strong sense of ethnic identity. One example we have already encountered are Yup’ik-speaking communities in Alaska. However, indigenous languages have been dying out at a rapid pace over the past 100 years or more, as their speakers reduce the importance of a non-English community language as an identity symbol. Other examples are communities based on religious faith. Old Order Amish have been living in what is now the United States since before the American Revolution. They reject modern conveniences, such as electricity and automobiles, and are friendly in their dealings with outsiders, but keep themselves carefully separate from them. Amish communities have maintained bilingualism over the generations. They use a variety of German commonly called “Pennsylvania Dutch” in their homes and for worship. They use English, not only for contacts outside the community, but also as the language of education. These communities operate their own parochial schools because they are suspicious of the values their children would learn in public schools. Although the schools are run by the community for their own children, the medium of instruction is English.
另一个以信仰为基础的群体是哈雷迪犹太人,他们生活在纽约市,是一个紧密团结的宗教群体,对自己独特的身份有着强烈的意识。他们使用意第绪语作为家庭和学校语言,也用于礼拜。虽然他们使用英语进行外部接触,但他们小心谨慎地限制外部影响。哈雷迪犹太人社区几代以来一直保持着稳定的意第绪语-英语双语制。
Another faith-based group, found particularly in New York City, are the Haredi Jews, close-knit religious communities with a strong awareness of their unique identity. They use Yiddish as a home and school language, as well as for aspects of worship. Although they use English for outside contacts, they are careful to limit external influences. The Haredi Jewish communities have maintained stable Yiddish–English bilingualism over generations.
总体而言,美国人钦佩那些掌握多种语言的人。一个来自英语背景的美国人如果能流利地说另一种语言(即使他/她说话带有口音),就会被认为是聪明的。美国人很乐意让他们的孩子在高中和大学学习外语,甚至在大学期间出国留学。另一方面,一个来自西班牙语背景的美国人如果学习英语,但在家庭和当地社区继续说西班牙语,就会受到怀疑。为什么只有在英语是第一语言的情况下,双语才能受到赞赏?也许答案是对语言和民族主义认同之间关系的直观认识。如果美国人似乎在自己的社区中保留了英语以外的其他语言,无论他们说英语有多好,都会被怀疑持有危险的分裂忠诚。土著居民(如老派阿米什人和哈雷迪犹太人)基于国籍保持双语的真正案例之所以受到容忍,是因为这些社区规模小、与世隔绝,也许还有些古怪。但许多主流美国人并不区分由于持续移民而产生的“短暂”双语和作为群体认同象征而维持的双语。真正的问题可能是,如果代价是允许人们认为自己除了是美国人之外还有其他身份,美国人是否能接受稳定的双语。这似乎是实现持续跨代双语所需要的。双语。
In general, Americans admire people who know more than one language. An American from an English-speaking background who becomes fluent in another language (even if he/she speaks with an accent) is considered intelligent. Americans are happy to have their children study foreign languages in high school and college, and even study abroad for part of their college career. On the other hand, an American from a Spanish-speaking background who learns English, but continues to speak Spanish within the family and local community is viewed with suspicion. Why should bilingualism only be admired if English is the first language? Perhaps the answer is an intuitive realization of the relationship between language and nationalist identity. Americans who appear to maintain a language other than English within their communities, no matter how well they speak English, are suspected of holding a dangerously divided loyalty. The genuine cases of nationality-based bilingual maintenance by indigenous populations, like the Old Order Amish and Haredi Jews, are tolerated because the communities are small, isolated, and maybe a bit quaint. But many mainstream Americans do not distinguish “transitory” bilingualism due to continuing immigration from bilingualism maintained as a symbol of group identity. The real question may be whether Americans can accept stable bilingualism if the price is allowing people to think of themselves as being something else in addition to being American. That seems to be what it would take to achieve continuing crossgenerational bilingualism.
到目前为止,我们讨论了政治上对语言和方言的处理,比如美国力推英语成为官方语言,新加坡对使用新加坡式英语对话的电影实行 NC-17 评级。规范人们使用什么语言或方言,或者阻止使用非标准语言,都与试图控制社会身份或树立理想的国家形象有关。但言论内容有时也会成为政治问题。两种这样的语言内容问题是 (1)亵渎(侮辱神圣的个人或物品)和咒骂(不敬地使用宗教术语或使用被认为淫秽的词语),以及 (2)仇恨言论(基于种族等社会特征对个人或群体进行威胁或恐吓)。咒骂与语言标准化有关。它违反了社会标准,就像说ain't 一样,但更为严重。但这只是其中的一部分。政府试图控制亵渎、诅咒或仇恨言论,不是为了鼓励人们追求理想的身份,而是为了保护公众免受对重要价值观的冒犯。在这两个问题上,言论自由与允许某些言论在公共场合发表可能带来的社会危害之间存在政治紧张关系。
So far, we’ve discussed the political treatment of languages and dialects, like the push to make English official in the United States and the restrictive NC-17 rating on the movie with Singlish dialogue in Singapore. Regulating what languages or dialects people speak or discouraging nonstandard language has to do with trying to control social identity, or projecting a desirable national image. But the content of speech sometimes becomes a political issue as well. Two such language-content issues are (1) blasphemy (insults against sacred individuals or items) and cursing (irreverent use of religious terms or use of terms considered obscene), and (2) hate speech (threats or intimidation against individuals or groups based on social characteristics like race). Cursing is related to language standardization. It is a violation of social standards, like saying ain’t, but more serious. But this is only part of it. Governments try to control blasphemy and cursing or hate speech, not to encourage desired identities, but to protect the public from affronts to important values. In both issues, there is political tension between freedom of speech and the social harm that might come from allowing some kinds of speech in public.
亵渎言论能够给信徒带来痛苦并激怒他们,其威力是巨大的。2005 年,丹麦报纸《日德兰邮报》担心欧洲其他地区对伊斯兰教的自我审查,委托插画家创作了先知穆罕默德 (愿他安息) 的漫画,其威力之大可见一斑。《古兰经》可以理解为禁止制作穆罕默德的任何图像,但过去先知的画像也曾出现过,并没有引起任何事故。并不是所有的漫画都是故意写负面的,但有一些是,特别是有一幅漫画,先知的头巾上出现了一枚炸弹。世界各地的穆斯林对此深感愤怒,丹麦大使馆和其他与西方有关的场所遭到袭击,造成数十人死亡,丹麦产品的抵制行动也基本上没有效果。
The power of blasphemous expression to inflict pain on and infuriate the faithful is great. Just how great became apparent in 2005 when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, concerned about self-censorship elsewhere in Europe where Islam was involved, commissioned illustrators to create cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (may peace be with him). The Qur’an can be interpreted as forbidding the production of any images of Muhammad, but depictions of the Prophet have appeared in the past without incident. Not all the cartoons were deliberately negative, but some were, particularly one in which a bomb appears in the Prophet’s turban. Muslims around the world took deep offense and there were attacks on Danish embassies and other sites associated with the West, resulting in scores of deaths, as well as a largely ineffective boycott of Danish products.
虽然本案中的亵渎涉及的是图片而非文字,但它凸显了西方和穆斯林世界在表达方面的价值观上的明显差异。穆斯林认为,对他们宗教的攻击是被蓄意纵容的。丹麦和其他西方政府认为,更基本的价值观是捍卫言论自由权,无论言论多么具有冒犯性。西方有亵渎法;自亨利八世在十六世纪建立英国国教以来,英国普通法就将亵渎行为定为非法,从技术上讲,这一规定至今仍然有效。亵渎行为在美国几个州都是违法的,但这些法律很少得到执行。美国最后一次亵渎行为起诉发生在 20 世纪 70 年代。在漫画案中,更有效的威慑手段是暴力威胁。例如在美国,耶鲁大学出版社决定不将这些漫画收录到《震撼世界的漫画》一书中,因为它咨询过的专家一致认为,这些漫画受到人身攻击的威胁非常严重。美国动画电视动画片《南方公园》以对受人尊敬的人物和话题不敬甚至常常带有侮辱性的方式处理而闻名,它严格审查了其中一集以穆罕默德为主题的剧集,尽管穆罕默德实际上从未出现在剧集中。此前,一家位于纽约的伊斯兰网站上出现了一则含蓄的威胁。另一方面,丹麦拒绝向 《日德兰邮报》施压,要求其道歉,这些漫画在挪威重新发表,以支持这家丹麦报纸。尽管如此,总体而言,在西方世界的许多地方,亵渎神明所造成的伤害现在被认为比政府试图阻止亵渎神明所造成的言论自由限制的危害要小。
Although the blasphemy in this case involved pictures rather than words, it highlighted a sharp difference in values about expression in the West and in the Muslim world. Muslims felt that an attack on their religion was being willfully condoned. The Danish and other western governments took the position that a more primary value was to defend the right to freedom of expression, no matter how offensive. There are blasphemy laws in the West; English common law has made blasphemy illegal in the United Kingdom since Henry VIII established the Church of England in the sixteenth century, and it is technically in force today. Blasphemy has been against the law in several states in the United States, but these laws have been enforced only rarely. The last blasphemy prosecution in the United States took place in the 1970s. A more effective deterrent in the cartoon case was the threat of violence. In the United States, for example, Yale University Press decided not to include the cartoons in a book called The Cartoons that Shook the World, when specialists it consulted agreed that the threat of physical attacks would be severe. The American animated television cartoon South Park, known for its irreverent and often insulting treatment of admired people and topics, heavily censored an episode in which Muhammad was a subject, although he would never have been actually represented. This happened after a veiled threat appeared on an Islamic website based in New York. On the other hand, Denmark declined to pressure Jyllands-Posten to apologize and the cartoons were republished in Norway in support of the Danish newspaper. In spite of all this, it is generally true that in much of the western world, the harm caused by blasphemy is now considered less damaging than the limitations to free speech that would result if governments tried to prevent it.
而在公开使用脏话的问题上,结论就不那么明确了。在美国密歇根州,有两起不同的事件,男子因在公共场合骂人而被定罪。一名男子从独木舟上摔下来,在孩子们能听到的地方骂了一连串脏话。他被罚款,并被要求在儿童保育计划中工作几天。另一名男子被指控咒骂一名校车司机,他认为这名司机虐待了他的女儿。他还被指控殴打和扰乱治安,被判入狱 90 天。在这两起案件中,法官都认为,这项已有百年历史的州禁止咒骂的法律符合宪法,显然认为儿童听到咒骂造成的伤害凌驾于言论自由权之上,因为它在这些案件中,可能适用这一原则。在马里兰大学,校方对篮球比赛中辱骂对手并说出脏话的学生感到愤怒。校方试图说服学生改变他们的行为,部分原因是社区的人带着年幼的孩子去看比赛,但这些尝试失败了。该大学随后向州检察长办公室请求裁决,他们是否应该正式禁止在这些体育赛事中咒骂。初步裁决是,如果大学这样做,就不会违反宪法。至少在美国,公开咒骂造成的伤害,特别是对儿童造成的伤害,有时被认为比限制人们公开咒骂的自由可能造成的损害更大。
The conclusion has not been quite so clear when it comes to the public use of curse words. In two different incidents in the state of Michigan in the US, men were convicted of cursing in public. One man had fallen out of a canoe and responded with a string of curse words in a place where children could hear him. He was fined and required to work several days in a child-care program. The other man was accused of cursing a school bus driver who he thought had mistreated his daughter. He was also charged with assault and disturbing the peace, and was sentenced to ninety days in jail. In both cases, judges found the century-old state law against cursing constitutional, apparently considering the harm caused by children hearing the cursing to override the right to freedom of speech as it might have applied in these cases. At the University of Maryland, university officials were outraged by students who uttered profanities while taunting their team’s opponents at basketball games. University officials tried to persuade students to change their behavior, in part because people from the community brought young children to the games, but these attempts failed. The university then asked for a ruling from the state attorney general’s office on whether it would be constitutional for them to officially ban cursing at these sports events. A preliminary ruling was that the university would not violate the constitution if it did. It seems that, in the United States at least, the harm caused, particularly to children, by cursing in public is sometimes considered greater than the damage that might be done by limiting people’s freedom to curse in public.
2010 年,谷歌公司推出了一款手机 Nexus One,该手机允许用户通过语音发送短信,该手机采用了语音识别技术。当用户发现他们在编写短信时说出的任何四个字母的单词在书面版本中都被“#”序列替换时,他们大吃一惊。谷歌是在试图清理客户的冒犯性语言吗?不,该公司表示,它担心其不完善的语音识别算法可能会将无辜的表达解释为淫秽或亵渎,而实际上并非有意为之。六个月后,谷歌因不相关的原因停止了 Nexus One 的营销原因。
In 2010, Google, Inc. marketed a mobile telephone, the Nexus One, that enabled users to send text messages by speaking, using speech recognition technology. Users were startled when they discovered that any four-letter words they spoke while composing text messages were replaced by sequences of “#” in the written version. Was Google trying to clean up its customers’ offensive language? No, the company said, it was afraid that its imperfect speech recognition algorithms might interpret innocent expressions as obscenity or profanity when none was intended. Google discontinued marketing the Nexus One six months later for unrelated reasons.
您认为哪些言论应该受到限制或保护往往取决于您的整体政治观点。一般来说,保守派政治倾向的人认为限制言论自由以防止咒骂(甚至亵渎)是合理的,但对仇恨言论的看法却有所不同。另一方面,自由派更有可能为限制仇恨言论辩护,并认为禁止咒骂是对言论自由权的严重侵犯。2005 年,瑞典福音派新教教堂的牧师因在布道中谴责同性恋而被捕。他被判违反瑞典严格的仇恨言论法,并被判处 30 天监禁。仇恨言论通常被定义为基于种族、国籍、宗教、性别或本案中的性取向等社会特征而恐吓他人的言论。本案凸显了有害言论与自由言论之间的权衡。这位瑞典牧师认为,他被捕(显然是他采取了一些行动挑起的)侵犯了他宣扬宗教信仰的权利。批评者说,宗教自由或言论自由并不包括恐吓同性恋等历史上受迫害的少数群体的言论。
What kinds of speech you think should be limited or protected tends to depend on your overall political viewpoint. Generally, people of conservative political leanings find that limiting freedom of speech to prevent swearing (and maybe blasphemy) is justified, but tend to feel differently about hate speech. On the other hand, liberals are more likely to defend restrictions on hate speech and see serious violations of the right to free speech when swearing is prohibited. In 2005, the pastor of an evangelical protestant church in Sweden was arrested for delivering a sermon in which he condemned homosexuality. He was found guilty of violating Sweden’s strict hate speech laws and was sentenced to thirty days in prison. Hate speech is generally defined as speech that is intimidating towards people on the basis of social characteristics such as race, national origin, religion, sex, or, as in this case, sexual orientation. This case highlights the trade-off between harmful versus free speech. The Swedish clergyman sees his arrest (which he apparently took some steps to provoke) as infringing on his right to preach his religious convictions. His critics say that religious freedom or freedom of speech does not extend to speech intimidating historically persecuted minority groups, like homosexuals.
欧洲的仇恨言论法更有可能将针对群体的言论定为非法。美国的立场是,必须发生犯罪行为,才会受到法律惩罚。例如,由于某个佛教徒的宗教信仰而恐吓他/她可能是非法的,因为某个特定的人受到了伤害。另一方面,针对所有佛教徒的言论是受宪法保护的言论。
Hate speech laws in Europe are more likely to make speech against groups illegal. The stance in the United States has been that a crime must have occurred in order for there to be a legal penalty. It might be illegal, for example, to intimidate an individual Buddhist on account of his/her religion, because a specific person has suffered harm. To speak against all Buddhists, on the other hand, is constitutionally protected speech.
在仇恨言论方面的政治倾向差异可能在大学的仇恨言论监管方面表现得最为明显。美国的公立大学与私立大学相比,美国私立大学在限制仇恨言论方面受到的法律限制更多,因为政府被禁止采取可能限制言论自由的行动。私立机构在开展业务时拥有更大的自由度。如果针对特定群体的骚扰言论至少可以预见地会导致这些群体成员陷入敌对环境,美国私立大学禁止此类言论的情况并不少见。仇恨言论准则的批评者认为,大学应该是人们自由表达不受欢迎观点的首选场所。仇恨言论准则可能会保护一些人免受敌对环境的侵害,但会为那些观点违反准则的人创造一个敌对环境。仇恨言论准则的支持者同意,如果少数群体的观点能够合理地表达,当然应该被允许,但他们声称仇恨言论本质上是不合理的,因为它是对整个群体的一概谴责。此外,他们还表示,骚扰言论对经历过压迫历史的少数群体的危害远远大于对没有这种历史的更强大群体的成员的危害;忍受骚扰环境会以歧视性的方式扰乱少数族裔学生的教育。
The difference in political orientation with respect to hate speech is perhaps most clear in the case of hate speech regulations at universities. State-funded universities in the US are more limited by law in restricting hate speech than private universities are because the government is forbidden to take actions that might limit freedom of speech. Private institutions have more latitude in conducting their business. It is not uncommon for private US universities to prohibit harassing speech against a particular list of groups if such speech at least foreseeably might cause a hostile environment for members of those groups. Critics of hate speech codes argue that a university ought to be the first place where people should be free to express unpopular ideas. Hate speech codes might protect some people from hostile environments, but create a hostile environment for those with views that run afoul of the codes. Proponents of hate speech codes agree that minority viewpoints certainly should be allowed if rationally expressed, but claim that hate speech is inherently irrational since it consists of blanket condemnations of whole groups. Furthermore, they say that harassing speech is much more harmful to minorities who have experienced a history of oppression than it would be to members of more powerful groups who don’t have such a history; having to endure a harassing environment would disrupt the education of a minority student in a discriminatory way.
显然,试图在捍卫言论自由的愿望与某些言论可能造成的伤害之间取得平衡绝非易事。政府有义务保护人民的自由,但也有责任保护他们免受伤害。有时,他们必须少做一件事,多做另一件事。你如何评估这些权衡不可避免地会受到你总体政治观点的影响觀看的數據。
It is clearly far from simple to attempt to balance a desire to defend freedom of speech against the harm some kinds of speech might cause. Governments have an obligation to protect people’s freedoms, but they also have a responsibility to protect them from harm. They sometimes have to do less of one to do more of the other. How you evaluate these trade-offs is inevitably colored by your general political views.
如果你认为语言是人与人之间交流思想的手段,那么语言成为政治争议的根源似乎有些奇怪。但是当你说话时,你也展示了你在社会中的身份。你所说的语言——你的方言和口音,甚至你造句的方式——都有助于塑造你的身份。这意味着那些拥有政治权力的人会试图控制语言,试图引导人们的身份朝着期望的方向发展。政府机构和有权势的人试图规定什么语言可以用于什么目的,什么形式的语言是可以接受的,甚至什么是语言,什么不是语言。除了控制语言形式之外,当权者有时还会试图限制你说话时可以说的话。所有这些控制语言形式和使用以及人们对它们的反应的努力,都构成了语言的政治。由于并不总是显而易见的原因,语言作为一个政治问题竟然出人意料地占据着突出的地位。
If you think of language as a means of communicating ideas from one person to another, it might seem strange that language should be the source of political controversy. But when you speak, you also display who you are in society. The language you speak – your dialect and accent, even the way you construct your sentences – helps shape your identity. This means that those with political power are going to be tempted to control language in an attempt to guide people’s identities in desired directions. Government agencies and powerful people try to stipulate what languages can be used for what purposes, what forms of the language are acceptable, and even what is or is not a language. Beyond control over language form, people in power sometimes try to restrict the sorts of things you can say when you speak. All of these efforts to control the form and use of language, and people’s reaction to them, add up to the politics of language. Language, for reasons that are not always obvious, turns out to have a surprisingly prominent place as a political issue.
南蒂罗尔是意大利的一个省,曾是奥地利的一部分。南蒂罗尔的大多数人口(68%)讲德语,该省官方语言为双语。讲德语的人口——在南蒂罗尔占多数但在意大利占少数的人们——他们不满城镇、河流、山谷和其他地点的名称都是意大利语,尽管德语使用者在当地称它们为德语名称,意大利语使用者称它们为意大利语名称。例如,传统上称为 Innichen 的城镇的官方名称是否应保留为 San Candido 的官方名称,这成为一个有争议的问题。根据你对语言和身份的了解,试着解释为什么南蒂罗尔的地名成为情感问题。
South Tirol is an Italian province that was once part of Austria. Most of the population of South Tirol (68 percent) is German-speaking and the province is officially bilingual. The German-speaking population – a majority in South Tirol but a minority in Italy – resents the fact that names of towns, rivers, valleys, and other locations are officially in Italian, though they are locally referred to by their German names by German speakers and by their Italian names by Italian speakers. It became a contentious issue, for example, whether or not the official name of the town traditionally known as Innichen should be allowed to remain officially San Candido. Given what you know about language and identity, try to explain why place names in South Tirol became an emotional issue.
1999 年,蒙雷阿尔附近一家古董店的店主被罚款 500 加元,因为店名的法语和英语字母大小相同,而不是法律要求的法语字母要大一些。魁北克高等法院判决店主败诉,加拿大最高法院拒绝受理此案。为什么魁北克如此重视店名字母的大小?请将您的答案与语言和身份联系起来。从互联网上收集有关魁北克语言法律的信息可能会有所帮助。
The owners of an antique store near Monréal were fined 500CND in 1999 because the letters naming the store were the same size in French and in English instead of being larger in French, as the law requires. The Québec Superior Court ruled against the owners and the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the case. Why is the size of letters on a store sign taken so seriously in Québec? Relate your answer to language and identity. It may be helpful to gather information on Québec language laws from the internet.
根据 Fishman 的定义,您是否认为您的国家是一个民族或多民族国家?请说明您的答案。
Do you consider your country a nation or a multinational state by Fishman’s definitions? Give reasons for your answer.
文中提到了阿拉斯加原住民村庄 Tuntutuliak,该村庄通过了一项法律,要求村庄政府事务必须使用尤皮克语进行。同年,位于墨西哥边境的德克萨斯州埃尔塞尼佐镇开始用西班牙语开展市议会事务。报纸和电视上有大量关于埃尔塞尼佐案的报道和评论,但几乎没有关于 Tuntutuliak 案的讨论。(1)这些决定涉及官方语言还是国家语言?(2)为什么埃尔塞尼佐案比 Tuntutuliak 案引起更多的愤慨?(3)您认为,是否应该要求其中一个或两个地方以英语开展政府事务?解释一下。
The text mentions the Alaskan native village of Tuntutuliak, which passed a law requiring village government business to be conducted in Yup’ik. The same year, the town of El Cenizo, Texas, on the Mexican border, began conducting city council business in Spanish. There were numerous newspaper and television stories and commentaries about the El Cenizo case but hardly any discussion of the Tuntutuliak case. (1) Did these decisions involve official or national language? (2) Why did the El Cenizo case incite so much more indignation than the Tuntutuliak case? (3) In your opinion, should either or both localities be required to conduct government business in English? Explain.
下列哪个可能是编码标准,哪个是未编码标准?
Which of the following is probably a coded standard and which is an uncoded standard?
找到另外两个现实生活中的编码标准的例子和两个未编码的标准的例子。
Find two other real-life examples of coded standards and two of uncoded standards.
在小说《紫色》中,主人公西莉的父亲将她许配给了一个她几乎不认识的男人。艾丽斯·沃克让西莉在一封写给上帝的信中用黑人英语叙述了这一场景:
In the novel The Color Purple, the father of the main character, Celie, offers her as a wife to a man she hardly knows. Alice Walker has Celie narrate the scene in one of her letters to God, in Ebonics:
她很丑。他说。但她对辛勤工作并不陌生。而且她很爱干净。上帝已经把她修好了。你可以随心所欲地做任何事,她不会让你喂它吃东西或给它穿衣服。
先生还是什么都没说。我拿出了莎格·艾弗里的照片。我看着她的眼睛。她的眼睛说,是的,有时就是这样。
(第 18 页)
She ugly. He say. But she ain’t no stranger to hard work. And she clean. And God done fixed her. You can do everything just like you want to and she ain’t gonna make you feed it or clothe it.
Mr.______still don’t say nothing. I take out the picture of Shug Avery. I look into her eyes. Her eyes say Yeah, it bees that way sometime.
(p. 18)
解释为什么沃克让父亲说“她很丑”而不是“她很丑”,以及为什么莎格·艾弗里(西莉的朋友)的照片看起来像是在说“有时候事情是那样”,而不是“有时候事情是那样” 。
Explain why Walker has the father say She ugly instead of She be ugly, and why the picture of Shug Avery (Celie’s friend) seems to say It bees that way sometime rather than It is that way sometime.
提示:由于She ugly不涉及带 -in 后缀的动词,因此应该将其与文中例子中的一般现在时She write进行比较,而不是She writin。
Hint: since She ugly does not involve a verb with the -in suffix, it should be compared to the simple present-tense She write in the example in the text, rather than to She writin.
提示:将bees视为be的变体。
Hint: treat bees as a variant of be.
1923 年,美国伊利诺伊州宣布“美式语言”而非“英语”为该州的官方语言。(该决定于 1969 年被推翻。)“美式语言”要成为一种有别于“英语”的语言需要什么条件呢?
In 1923, the US state of Illinois declared “American” as the state’s official language, not “English.” (This decision was reversed in 1969.) What would it take for “American” to become a language distinct from “English”?
这是另一个类似 11.7 的练习。稍后在 Dirty Money 的“Hello Good Morning”中出现了以下一行:
Here is another exercise like 11.7. Later on in Dirty Money’s “Hello Good Morning” the following line appears:
我只是对他们说你好,但我从来没有向他们致敬。
I just be like hello hello but I never could salute them.
根据你对黑人英语动词系统的理解,解释为什么这句话不是:
Based on your understanding of the Ebonics verb system, explain why the line is not:
我只是说你好你好,但我永远无法向他们致敬。
I’m just like hello hello but I never could salute them.
请务必提及含义上的差异,而不仅仅是是否遵循传统或替代标准。
Be sure you mention the meaning difference, not just whether or not traditional or alternative standards are being followed.
在 2003 年 1 月的金球奖颁奖典礼上,U2 乐队成员 Bono 发表了评论:“这(脏话)太精彩了!”他的评论在黄金时段的电视上播出。负责在公共广播中执行联邦礼仪标准的美国联邦通信委员会最初裁定,Bono 使用的脏话的形容词用法不不雅行为,并未处以罚款。几个月后,FCC 改变了立场,警告说今后再犯此类罪行将受到处罚。鉴于无线电波属于公众,因此理应为公众利益而受到监管,你认为 FCC 第一次拒绝处以罚款是对的,还是第二次表示应该处以罚款是对的?请给出你回答的理由。
At the January 2003 Golden Globes award, U2 band member Bono made the comment, “This is (expletive) brilliant!” His comment was broadcast on television during prime-time hours. The United States Federal Communications Commission, which is responsible for enforcing federal decency standards on the public airwaves, originally decided that an adjectival use of the expletive that Bono used was not indecent, and did not impose a penalty. A few months later, the FCC reversed itself and warned that future offenses of that kind would be penalized. Given that the airwaves belong to the public and therefore are supposed to be regulated in the public interest, do you think the FCC was right the first time, when it declined to impose a penalty, or the second time, when it said in essence that it should have? Give reasons for your answer.
假设你的学院或大学拥有一种技术,可以从学生通过学校电子邮件系统发送的电子邮件中删除亵渎或咒骂的内容。你会支持使用这项技术吗?如果它只用于删除贬低少数群体的语言,但允许亵渎或咒骂,那会怎样?你会支持它吗?解释一下你的立场,不管在这两种情况下你的立场是否相同。
Suppose your college or university had the technology to remove blasphemy or cursing from students’ email messages sent through the school’s email system. Would you support using the technology? What if it were used only to remove language that disparaged minority groups, but allowed blasphemy or cursing? Would you support it then? Explain your position, whether or not it is the same in the two cases.
如前几章所示,语言的一个基本特征就是变化无常;不同的语言社区会发展出不同的语言,而这些语言社区内的不同群体又会发展出自己的方言。语言社区也会根据不同的目的和情况使用不同的语言。人们和朋友说话的方式与和老板说话的方式不同。人们在教堂和酒吧里使用的语言也不同。在工作中做报告的人和在聚会上讲笑话的人说话的方式也不同。人们写作时使用语言的方式与说话时也不同。使用语言来满足不同情形的交际和社交需求的不同方式被称为语域。
As preceding chapters have shown, a fundamental characteristic of language is that it varies; different speech communities develop different languages, and different groups within those speech communities develop their own dialects. Speech communities also vary their use of their language to serve different purposes and different situations. People speak to friends differently than they speak to their bosses. People use different language in a church versus in a bar. Someone giving a report at work speaks differently than that same person telling a joke at a party. And when they write, people use language in different ways than when they speak. Different ways of using language to meet the communicative and social needs of different situations are called registers.
书写也许是语言适应不同目的和情况的最明显例子,因此我们将研究世界上不同的书写系统及其发展过程。我们将以三种东亚语言和阿拉伯语为例描述不同类型的书写系统,展示每种系统如何适应其口语和文化。然后,我们将追溯书写的历史,从埃及象形文字到拉丁字母,这个故事展示了书写与人类文化发展之间的双向关系。最后,我们将看看书写在近代欧洲历史中所扮演的角色。
Writing is perhaps the clearest example of the adaptation of language to serve different purposes and situations, so we will examine the different writing systems of the world and how they developed. Describing the different kinds of writing systems with examples from three East Asian languages and Arabic, we’ll show how each system is suited to its spoken language and its culture. Then we’ll trace the history of writing from Egyptian hieroglyphics to the Latin alphabet, a story which demonstrates the two-way relationship between writing and the development of human culture. Finally, we’ll take a look at the role that writing has played in more recent European history.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
语言学的大部分内容(以及本书的大部分内容)都侧重于口语,这是有充分理由的。出于多种原因,口语比写作更基础。口语在写作发明(大约 6,000 年前)之前就已经存在了数万年。每个社会都有口语,但只有一些社会有书写系统;识字对人类社会来说很有价值,但并非必需。口语是我们人类与生俱来的权利的一部分:孩子们不用费心就能学会说话,但必须学会阅读和写作。写作是一种社交技能,而不是生物属性:在使用写作的社会中,每个正常发育的人都会学习说话,但并非所有人都会学习阅读和写作。
Most of linguistics – and most of this book – focuses on spoken language, and with good reason. For several reasons, speech is more basic than writing. Spoken language existed tens of thousands of years before writing was invented (around 6,000 years ago). Every society has spoken language, but only some societies have writing systems; literacy is valuable to human societies, but not necessary. Speech is part of our human birthright: children learn to speak without trying but have to be taught to read and write. Writing is a social skill, not a biological attribute: every normally developed person in a society that uses writing learns to speak, but not all learn to read and write.
然而,正如我们在第 8 章中看到的,语言这一工具在不断地适应使用者不断变化的需求。语言最重要的功能适应之一就是写作的发展。语言给人类带来的许多好处都因写作的发明和发展而得到了放大。
However, as we saw in Chapter 8, the tool of language is constantly being adapted to meet the changing needs of its users. One of the most important functional adaptations of language has been the development of writing. Many of the benefits of language to human beings have been amplified by the invention and development of writing.
写作让我们能够跨越空间和时间的障碍(甚至生命)!然而,写作也有其成本和局限性:
Writing allows us to leap the barriers of space and time (and even mortality)! Writing has its costs and limitations, however:
但写作的某些代价也包含着一线希望。例如,柏拉图认为写作会摧毁记忆,但写作比吟游诗人的记忆更可靠地保存文本。写作让更多人能够接触到文本,甚至跨越几代人。讽刺的是,通过保存过去,写作也让人类摆脱了它的暴政。通过让人们从记忆过去文本所需的时间和精力中解放出来,写作使他们能够展望未来,发展新思想,创造新文本。
But some of the costs of writing contain a silver lining. For example, Plato argued that writing would destroy memory, but writing preserves texts more reliably than a bard’s memory. Writing extends access to texts to many more people, even across generations. Ironically, by preserving the past, writing also freed the human species from its tyranny. By freeing people from the time and effort required to memorize past texts, writing enabled them to look forward, develop new ideas, and create new texts.
书写的优点和局限性对发展并依赖书写的语言社区产生了深远的影响。正如 Florian Coulmas 指出的那样:
The advantages and limitations of writing have had a profound effect on the speech communities that developed and came to rely on writing. As Florian Coulmas points out:
称写作为有史以来最重要的技术并非冒险之举。图书馆、数据库和多层信息网络中保存着海量的书面记录和知识,很难想象现代生活的方方面面不受写作的影响……写作不仅提供了重温过去的方式,也是塑造未来的关键技能。
( 2003年:1)
It is not risky to call writing the single most consequential technology ever invented. The immensity of written record and the knowledge conserved in libraries, databanks, and multilayered information networks makes it difficult to imagine an aspect of modern life unaffected by writing … Writing not only offers ways of reclaiming the past, but is a critical skill for shaping the future.
(2003: 1)
那么,写作到底是什么?事实证明,定义写作并不容易,而写作的定义引发了许多重要问题。在《布莱克威尔书写系统百科全书》中,弗洛里安·库尔马斯将书写系统定义为:
So just what is writing? It turns out that defining writing is not easy, and definitions of writing raise a number of important questions. In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, Florian Coulmas defines a writing system as:
一组可见或可触知的符号,用于系统地表示语言单位,目的是记录信息,让所有了解该语言和其单位在书写系统中编码规则的人都可以检索到。
(1989: 560)
a set of visible or tactile signs used to represent units of language in a systematic way, with the purpose of recording messages which can be retrieved by everyone who knows the language in question and the rules by virtue of which its units are encoded in the writing system.
(1989: 560)
库尔马斯从表现方式(视觉或触觉)、与口语的关系以及目的等方面来描述写作。大多数书写系统都使用可见符号;如今这些符号被印在纸上或以像素形式显示在电脑屏幕上,但过去使用其他材料——骨头、木头、石头和粘土。盲文是一种触觉系统,它有凸起的图案,方便盲人阅读。书写系统的核心特征是它系统地“表示语言单位”;它系统地将口语(可听)语言编码为可见(或可触)形式。至关重要的是,这意味着书面符号直接表示口语形式(声音、音节和/或单词)语言。书写只能通过口头语言间接地代表世界。书写的一般目的——记录和检索信息——已应用于广泛的交流情境,促进了复杂社会的发展,并创建了庞大的虚拟图书馆(互联网)。
Coulmas characterizes writing in terms of its mode of representation (visual or tactile), its relation to spoken language, and its purpose. Most writing systems use visible signs; nowadays these signs are printed on paper or pixillated on a computer screen, but in the past other materials – bones, wood, stone, and clay – were used. Braille, with its raised patterns of bumps for blind readers, is a tactile system. The central characteristic of a writing system is that it systematically “represents units of language”; it systematically encodes spoken (audible) language into a visible (or tactile) form. Crucially, this means that written symbols directly represent forms (sounds, syllables, and/or words) in a spoken language. Writing represents the world only indirectly, through the spoken language. The general purpose of writing – recording and retrieving messages – has been applied to a broad array of communicative situations, facilitating the development of complex societies and creating a virtual library (the internet) of enormous size.
书写系统或文字可根据语言单位的图形表示方式进行分类。在表意文字系统中,每个字素,即单个书写符号,代表特定的词素或单词。在音节系统中,每个符号代表一个特定的音节。在字母系统中,每个字母代表一个特定的声音或音素。当然,这些类别是对更复杂现实的简化!表意文字系统通常有一些语音元素,它们指的是口语中的声音。音节文字经常“作弊”,使用变音符号来表示辅音的质量或元音的长度。字母表有时将元音与辅音区别对待,并且没有字母表在字母和音素之间具有完美的一一对应关系。大多数文字并不完全适合某一特定类别,部分原因是它们是不断发展的系统,改编自周围语言社区的文字并受到其影响。
Writing systems, or scripts, can be classified by which units of language are graphically represented. In logographic systems, each grapheme, or individual written symbol, represents a particular morpheme or word. In syllabic systems, each symbol represents a particular syllable. And in alphabetic systems, each letter represents a particular sound or phoneme. Of course, these categories are simplifications of a more complex reality! Logographic systems often have some phonetic elements which refer to sounds in the spoken language. Syllabic scripts frequently “cheat” by using diacritics to indicate consonant quality or vowel length. Alphabets sometimes treat vowels differently from consonants, and no alphabet has a perfect one-to-one correspondence between letter and phoneme. Most scripts do not neatly fit into one particular category, in part because they are evolving systems, adapted from and influenced by the scripts of surrounding speech communities.
在本节中,我们将举例说明四种不同的书写系统,展示每种书写系统在形式上如何适合其所转录的口语,以及每种书写系统在功能上如何反映其文化的历史。在本章后面,我们将追溯书写的发展,直到今天大多数欧洲语言使用的拉丁字母,因此在本节中,我们将研究三种文化相关的东亚语言(中文、日语和韩语)的文字,然后研究书面阿拉伯语的辅音字母系统。为了让您了解每种书写系统的含义,我们将介绍拉丁字母系统,并介绍阿拉伯语的辅音字母系统。正字法,或一种语言书写系统的标准化版本,如下所示,以每种文字形式呈现了一个示例文本——《世界人权宣言》第 1 条前两句在每种语言中的翻译:
In this section, we will exemplify four different writing systems, showing how each is formally suited to the spoken language it transcribes and how each functionally reflects the history of its culture. Later in this chapter we’ll trace the development of writing leading to the Latin alphabet as used by most European languages today, so in this section we’ll look at the scripts of three culturally related East Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) and then examine the consonantal alphabetic system of written Arabic. To give you a sense of what each orthography, or standardized version of a language’s writing system, looks like, a sample text is presented in each script described below – the translation into each language of the first two sentences of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
人人生而自由,在尊严和权利上一律平等。他们赋有理性和良知,并应以兄弟情谊精神相待。
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(该想法借鉴自 Coulmas ( 2003 ),经许可,使用了来自www.omniglot.com的图表。)
(This idea was borrowed from Coulmas (2003), using graphics, by permission, from www.omniglot.com.)
在表意文字系统中,例如中文,每个书面符号(称为表意文字)代表口语中的一个词素。虽然符号可以组合起来形成具有相关或复合含义的符号,但表意文字系统中的表意文字数量通常非常大。最全面的中文词典收录了多达 50,000 个不同的表意文字(称为汉字),但大多数都是很少使用的单词。例如,要阅读中文报纸,必须知道大约 3,500 个书面汉字,而阅读专业或技术文本则需要识别大约另外3000个汉字。虽然这看起来似乎需要记住很多单个字符,但 1,000 个最常用的表意文字占面向普通读者的中文出版物中所有文字的 90% 左右。字母系统的使用者常常对需要记住几千个中文表意文字的字符感到震惊,但重要的是要记住字母系统对记忆有自己的要求。例如,虽然英语字母表的 26 个字母可以“读出”一个未知单词的发音(尽管并不总是准确),但单词的含义仍然必须学习——而英语词典中有多达 500,000 个条目!
In a logographic system, like Chinese, each written sign, called a logogram, represents a morpheme in the spoken language. Although signs can be combined to create signs with related or compound meanings, the number of logograms in a logographic system is typically very large. The most comprehensive dictionaries of Chinese list as many as 50,000 different logograms (called hanzi), but most represent words that are used rarely. To read a newspaper in Chinese, for example, one must know approximately 3,500 written characters, while reading specialized or technical texts requires recognition of perhaps another 3,000 hanzi. While this may seem like a lot of individual characters to memorize, the 1,000 most frequently used logograms account for around 90 percent of all writing in Chinese publications aimed at general readers. Users of alphabetic systems are often shocked at the need to memorize several thousand characters in the Chinese logographic system, but it is important to remember that alphabetic systems make their own demands on memory. For example, while the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet make it possible to “sound out” the pronunciation of an unknown word (although not always accurately), the meaning of the word must still be learned – and English dictionaries have as many as 500,000 entries!
汉语中许多单音节词用一个符号表示。例如,“马”在普通话中发音为 [mǎ](带上声调),写为。然而,大多数汉语单词(约 98%)由由两个部分组成的字符表示——一个语音限定符和一个部首。语音限定词(通常简称为“语音”)为汉字的发音提供线索,而部首为汉字的含义提供线索。 像 这样的符号
可以用作语音限定词 - 即与口语形式中包含音节 [ma] 的其他单词组合使用。 例如,
在以下汉字中(以及许多其他汉字中)是:
Many monosyllabic words in Chinese are represented by a single symbol. For example, ‘horse,’ pronounced [mǎ] (with a rising tone) in Mandarin Chinese, is written . However, most Chinese words (about 98 percent) are represented by characters that have two parts – a phonetic determinative and a radical. The phonetic determinative (often simply called the ‘phonetic’) gives a clue to the pronunciation of the character, while the radical gives clues to the meaning of the character. A symbol like can be used as a phonetic determinative – that is, combined with other words whose spoken form includes the syllable [ma]. For example, is in the following characters (and many more, as well):
例如,在字符[m ā
ma]“母亲”中,该符号代表音节 [ma],而不是“马”的意思。它与部首(见下文)相结合
,意为“女人”。
In the character [māma] ‘mother,’ for example, the symbol represents the syllable [ma], not the meaning ‘horse.’ It is combined with the radical (see below) , meaning ‘woman.’
由于口语中的声音变化以及同音词众多,语音限定词通常仅代表音节发音的一部分。包含相同语音限定词的两个字符可能具有不同的声调或不同的音节首音或音节尾音。(例如,[mǎ ] “马”的发音为上声,
[mà]“发誓”的发音为下声,
[ma]“?”的发音为平声。)因此,语音限定词在确定字符含义方面仅起到部分作用,并且几乎总是与称为部首的语义成分结合使用。
Because of sound changes in the spoken language and because of its many homophones, phonetic determinatives typically represent only part of the pronunciation of a syllable. Two characters containing the same phonetic determinative may have different tones or different syllable-initial or syllable-final sounds. (For example, [mǎ] ‘horse,’ is pronounced with a rising tone, [mà] ‘to swear’ is pronounced with a falling tone, and [ma] ‘?’ is pronounced with a level tone.) As a result, phonetic determinatives are only partially helpful in determining the meaning of a character and are almost always combined with a semantic component called a radical.
部首是用于表示各种复杂字符含义的符号。部首最初用于在词典中标记语义类别。目前的 214 个部首自 1633 年以来一直在使用,其类别具有不同的分类价值和透明度。例如,有部首除了表示“人”和“物”的部首外,还表示“地”、“火”和“水”,还表示“猪头”和“瓜”。“马”字在下列汉字中用作部首:
A radical is a symbol which is used in a variety of more complex characters to indicate aspects of those characters’ meanings. Radicals were originally used to label semantic categories in dictionaries. The current set of 214 radicals has been in use since 1633 and its categories are of varying classificatory value and transparency. For example, there are radicals for ‘human’ and ‘thing,’ as well as ‘earth,’ ‘fire,’ and ‘water,’ but also for ‘pig’s head’ and ‘melon.’ The character for ‘horse’ is used as a radical in the following characters:
在[píng]‘奔跑’
中,马的符号与
表示奔跑声音的语音限定词[ping]组合。在
[jià]‘骑、驾、驾驭’中,它与
表示‘轭’的
语音限定词组合。
In [píng] ‘to gallop,’ the symbol for ‘horse’ is combined with a phonetic determinative [ping] suggesting a galloping sound. In [jià] ‘to ride, drive, pilot,’ it is combined with a phonetic determinative , meaning ‘yoke.’
在大多数汉字中,部首的语义贡献并不那么直接。例如,“马”字在下列汉字中也用作部首:
In most characters, the semantic contribution of the radical is not so direct. For example, the character for ‘horse’ is also used as a radical in the following characters:
如果你知道[ sāo ] 的语音限定词源自“跳蚤”这个字,那么它“打扰、担心”的
含义就有一定的道理
,但其他语音限定词就没有这种有用的关联了。
While the meaning of [sāo] ‘to disturb, worry’ makes some sense if you know that the phonetic determinative derives from the character for ‘flea’, the other phonetic determinatives have no such helpful associations.
您可能听说过,中文是一种“表意”书写系统,其中的符号代表思想。然而,正如这些例子所示,中文书写字符也代表口语的单位,因此中文书写并非纯粹的表意。虽然语音限定词和部首都无法为大多数字符的含义提供明确的线索,但两者的结合有助于读者缩小可能的解释范围。然而,即使是受过高等教育的中文母语人士也无法预测一个未知口语单词的书写字符会是什么样子。使用字母书写系统可以更容易地做到这一点。中文读者严重依赖对单个字符的记忆。
You may have heard Chinese referred to as an “ideographic” writing system – in which symbols represent ideas. However, as these examples show, Chinese written characters also represent units of the spoken language, so Chinese writing is not purely ideographic. While neither phonetic determinatives nor radicals give unambiguous clues to the meaning of most characters, the combination of the two helps readers to narrow the range of possible interpretations. However, even highly educated native speakers of Chinese cannot predict what the written character for an unknown spoken word might look like. This can more easily be done with alphabetic writing systems. Chinese readers rely heavily on memorization of individual characters.
由于表意文字系统代表词素和单词,因此最适合没有大量屈折形态的语言,如中文。回想一下,屈折形态会将语法信息(时态、体、数、性别和格)添加到词根形态(如动词)中英语中的后缀 - ed和 - ing以及复数标记 - s,或意大利语中表示动词性别的后缀。想象一下,如果除了语音限定词和部首之外,汉字还包含一个或多个表示各种屈折词素的元素,那么汉字的复杂性!
Because they represent morphemes and words, logographic writing systems are best suited to a language like Chinese which does not have lots of inflectional morphology. Recall that inflectional morphemes add grammatical information (tense, aspect, number, gender, and case) to a root morpheme – like the verb suffixes -ed and -ing and the plural marker -s in English, or suffixes to indicate gender on verbs in Italian. Imagine the complexity of Chinese characters if, in addition to phonetic determinatives and radicals, they also had one or more elements for various inflectional morphemes!
传说汉字的发明者是仓颉,他记录了中国第一位皇帝黄帝的朝廷历史。根据传说,仓颉的灵感来自鸟类和动物足迹中的线条和形状。不管真假,汉字的象形起源可以从图 12.2中的“马”、“车”和“鱼”字的演变中看出。
Legend holds that the inventor of Chinese writing was Ts’ang Chieh, who recorded the history of the court of Emperor Huang Ti, the first emperor of China. According to the legend, Ts’ang Chieh was inspired by the lines and shapes in the footprints of birds and animals. True or not, the pictographic origins of Chinese characters can be seen in the evolution of the characters for ‘horse,’ ‘cart,’ and ‘fish,’ in Figure 12.2.
早期的象形文字以视觉方式描绘其所指对象,逐渐风格化,偶尔会进行简化,通常会去掉“不必要的”笔触。中华文化长期以来一直尊崇书写,书法作为一种艺术形式的重要性就说明了这一点,一些早期的字体在有限的使用领域得以保存。例如,小篆仍用于印章(姓名的印章)、名片和信纸上的名字书写。草书是一种草书(即每个字符都用一个连续的笔画书写),仍在书法中使用。近代,台湾、香港、澳门和许多海外华人社区都使用标准字体(也称为繁体中文)。中华人民共和国于 1949 年作为全民识字运动的一部分采用了简体字体。拼音是一种使用拉丁字母的拼写系统,在旅游等领域(例如路牌)的使用反映了中国与西方世界日益增强的相互依存关系。
Early pictograms, which visually depicted their referents, became increasingly stylized by occasional script simplifications, which typically eliminated “unnecessary” brush strokes. The Chinese culture has a long tradition of reverence for writing, evident in the importance of calligraphy as an art form, and several earlier scripts have been preserved, in limited domains of use. For example, the Small Seal script is still used to write names on chops (ink stamps of one’s name), business cards, and stationery. The Grass script is a cursive script (that is, each character is written with one continuous stroke) still used in calligraphy. In more recent times, the Standard script (which is referred to also as Traditional Chinese) is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among many overseas Chinese communities. The Simplified script was adopted in the People’s Republic of China in 1949 as part of a universal literacy effort. The use of pinyin, a spelling system which uses the Latin alphabet, in such domains as tourism (for example, street signs), reflects China’s increasing interdependence with the western world.
尽管许多早期的书写系统(如美索不达米亚楔形文字和埃及象形文字)最初都是表意文字,但汉字是唯一存续到现代的表意文字系统。中文表意文字之所以能存续下来,很大程度上是因为它是形式和功能的完美结合。数千年来,中国皇帝统治着广大的领土,那里使用着许多不同的语言。表意文字系统的发展意味着,即使两个不同语言社区的成员对一个词(比如“马”)的发音不同,他们也可以读出相同的意思文字符号。书面汉语具有统一作用,因为政府、艺术和科学领域的通用语言。
Although many early writing systems (like Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics) were initially logographic, the Chinese script is the only logographic system to survive to modern times. Chinese logographic writing has survived in large part because it is a good marriage of form and function. For thousands of years, Chinese emperors ruled over huge territories in which many different languages were spoken. Development of a logographic writing system meant that even if members of two different speech communities pronounced a word (say, for ‘horse’) differently, they could read the same word symbol. Written Chinese had a unifying effect as the lingua franca of government, the arts, and the sciences.
女书(中文意为“女性写作”)是一种音节文字,由中国湖南省江永县的妇女创造和使用,至少已有 400 年的历史。由于无法接受正规教育,江永的妇女们发明了女书,以便在男性主导的世界中相互交流。她们将文字绣在布上,并写在书籍和纸扇上。母亲们将女书教给女儿(通常是通过唱歌和抄写歌曲),而男性则被排除在女书之外。
Nushu (Chinese for ‘women’s writing’) is a syllabic script that was created and used exclusively by women in the Jiang Yong Prefecture of Hunan Province, China, for at least 400 years. Denied formal education, the women of Jiang Yong developed the Nushu script in order to communicate with one another in a male-dominated world. They embroidered the script into cloth and wrote it in books and on paper fans. Mothers taught the Nushu script to their daughters (often by singing and transcribing songs), and men were excluded from the code.
江永地区的女孩有结拜姊妹的习俗,即与非血亲的女性朋友建立牢固的联系。结婚通常意味着离开结拜姊妹,搬到一个陌生的村庄侍奉丈夫和婆婆,而且条件往往很艰苦。结拜姊妹的分离似乎促使了女书的创作和发展。妇女在结拜姊妹结婚时会给她们布面小册子,里面有祝愿婚姻幸福和表达分离悲伤的歌曲。这些小册子被称为“三朝书”,因为它们是在收信人结婚后的第三天送达的。女书也被用来写信给女人的结拜姊妹,信中谈到虐待婚姻、包办婚姻的孤立以及寡妇的解放。
Girls of the Jiang Yong area observed a custom of jiebai zimei, or ‘sworn sisterhood’ – strong bonds with female friends who were not blood relatives. Marriage typically meant leaving their sworn sisters and moving to an unfamiliar village to serve a husband and mother-in-law, often under difficult conditions. The separation of sworn sisters appears to have motivated the creation and development of the Nushu script. Cloth-bound booklets given by women to their sworn sisters when they were married contained songs wishing happiness in marriage and expressing sorrow at being separated. They were called San Chao Shu, or ‘Third Day Missives,’ because they were delivered on the third day after the recipient’s marriage. Nushu was also used to write letters to a woman’s sworn sisters about abusive marriages, the isolation of arranged marriages, and the liberation of widowhood.
女书手稿极其罕见,因为根据习俗,它们会被烧毁或与主人一起埋葬。
Nushu manuscripts are extremely rare because by custom they were burned or buried with their owners.
(您可以在“女书世界”网站(www2.ttcn.ne.jp/~orie/home.htm)上了解有关女书的更多信息,该网站由日本文教大学社会语言学教授远藤织江。
(You can learn more about Nushu at the “World of Nushu” website (www2.ttcn.ne.jp/~orie/home.htm), constructed by Orie Endo, a sociolinguistics professor at Bunkyo University, Japan.)
在音节书写系统中,每个书写符号代表口语的一个音节。然而,“纯”音节系统很少见;大多数系统使用附加变音符号或在基本书写符号上添加附加标记,以指示语音信息,如元音长度和浊音,或辅音的双音(双音)。
In a syllabic writing system, each written symbol represents a syllable of the spoken language. “Pure” syllabic systems are rare, however; most use additional diacritics, or additional markings on the basic written symbols, to indicate phonetic information like vowel length and voicing, or gemination (doubling) of consonants.
日语书写系统实际上是中文表意文字和两种不同音节系统的混合体——这是日本与中国文化的历史联系和其语言需求之间的妥协。日本最早的文字来自公元四世纪的中国,由以下文字组成:汉字(日语中称为汉字)。但是,日语是一种高度屈折的语言(与中文属于不同的语系),因此一些汉字被用来表示日语屈折词缀,这些词缀大多是单音节。随着时间的推移,以前用来表示日语音节的汉字表意文字被规范为两种音节文字:平假名和片假名。平假名用于书写日语本族词,而片假名用于书写非汉语借词。
The Japanese writing system is actually a hybrid of Chinese logograms and two different syllabic systems – a compromise between Japan’s historical ties to Chinese culture and the demands of its language. The first writing in Japan came from China during the fourth century CE and consisted of Chinese characters (called kanji in Japanese). However, Japanese is a highly inflected language (from a different language family than Chinese), so some Chinese characters were used to represent Japanese inflectional affixes, which are mostly monosyllables. Over time the former kanji logograms which had come to represent Japanese syllables were regularized into two syllabic scripts: hiragana and katakana. Hiragana are used to write native Japanese words, while katakana are used to write non-Chinese loan words.
日语的音节结构非常简单。大多数音节都是开放的,由辅音 (C) 和元音 (V) 组成。就像没有太多屈折的语言(如中文)非常适合表意文字系统一样,音节简单的语言(以及有限的音节表(syllable inventory)在形式上非常适合音节文字。这在平假名中尤为明显,其中的大多数音节字素称为假名,可以在二维表中表示,如图12.3所示。
Japanese has a very simple syllable structure. Most syllables are open, consisting of a consonant (C) followed by a vowel (V). Just as languages (like Chinese) with little inflection are well suited to logographic systems, languages with simple syllables (and a limited syllable inventory) are formally well suited to syllabic scripts. This is particularly evident with hiragana, in which most syllabic graphemes, called kana, can be represented in a two-dimensional table, like Figure 12.3.
日语有 15 个基本音素(9 个辅音、5 个元音和 1 个鼻音)。几乎所有的辅音和元音的组合都用一个独特的假名来表示,因此 [ka] = 、[sa] =
、[ki] =
等等。元音和音节末尾的鼻音都有自己的假名。(平假名和片假名还使用变音符号(放置在音节假名符号上的标记)来表示辅音质量和元音长度的变化。)
Japanese has a basic inventory of fifteen sounds (nine consonants and five vowels, plus a nasal). Combinations of nearly all of the consonants and vowels are represented by a unique kana, so [ka] = , [sa] = , [ki] = , and so on. The vowels and the syllable-final nasal have their own kana. (Hiragana and katakana also use diacritics, marks placed over syllabic kana symbols, to indicate changes in consonant quality and vowel length.)
所有日语单词都可以用平假名按音节书写,但大多数日语文本使用大约 1,000 个汉字 (汉字) 来表示词根词素,并使用平假名来添加词缀,如(1)所示。
All Japanese words can be written syllabically, using hiragana, but most Japanese texts use approximately 1,000 Chinese characters (kanji) to represent root morphemes and hiragana to add affixes, as shown in (1).
| (1) |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
平假名有时专门用于使某些文本更易于理解 - 例如儿童读物、教科书、动画、视频游戏和漫画书。
Hiragana are sometimes used exclusively to make some texts more accessible – for example, children’s books, textbooks, animation, video games, and comic books.
日语还有单独的音节表,称为片假名,用于书写非汉语的借词。
Japanese also has a separate syllabary, called katakana, used to write non-Chinese loan words.
日语文字的汇集反映了日本的历史和文化。汉字的使用反映了中国哲学和宗教的早期影响,汉字通过平假名词缀适应日语语法。片假名的使用反映了日本的文化同质性和与西方世界长期隔绝的历史,片假名以图形和符号形式标记外来借词。近年来,拉丁字母(称为罗马字)被用于许多借来的英语单词,标记这些单词(以及它们所指的事物或概念)特别非日语。例如,在日本广告中,性感和我的房子经常以罗马字出现,使色情和私有制等潜在概念更加奇特。在同一则广告中,更多同化的外来词/概念可能用片假名表示,而传统价值观则用汉字(带有平假名词缀)表示!使用多种文字可能会让外来者感到困惑,但它实际上在传达日本文化价值观和界限方面非常有用。
The aggregation of Japanese scripts reflects Japanese history and culture. Strong early influences of Chinese philosophy and religion are reflected in the use of kanji, which is adapted to Japanese grammar with hiragana affixes. Japan’s cultural homogeneity and long history of isolation from the western world is reflected in the use of katakana, to graphically and symbolically mark foreign loan words. In recent years, the Latin alphabet (called romaji) has been used for many borrowed English words, marking these words (and the things or concepts they refer to) as particularly non-Japanese. For example, in Japanese advertisements sexy and my house often appear in romaji, making the underlying concepts of eroticism and private ownership more exotic. In the same ad, more assimilated foreign words/concepts might be represented in katakana while traditional values are represented by a kanji character (with hiragana affixes)! Having several scripts might seem confusing to an outsider, but it is actually quite functional in signaling Japanese cultural values and boundaries.
日语文字也带有文化中性别关系历史的痕迹。平假名最初是由女性(不允许学习汉字)使用的,而受过教育的男性(用汉字和片假名书写)鄙视。。然而,从平安时代(公元 795-1192 年)一位贵妇所著的《源氏物语》开始,许多日本文学作品都以平假名书写,平假名也成为一种广泛使用的文字。即使在今天,平假名有时也被用来书写通常用片假名书写的单词,以使它们看起来更“女性化”,尤其是在年轻女孩的漫画书和动画片中。
Japanese scripts also bear traces of the culture’s history of gender relations. Hiragana originally were used by women (who were not allowed to learn kanji) and scorned by literate men (who wrote in kanji and katakana). However, beginning with The Tale of Genji, written by a noblewoman during the Heian era (795–1192 CE), much Japanese literature was written in hiragana, and it became a widely used script. Even today, hiragana are sometimes used to write words which would normally be written with katakana to make them appear more “feminine,” particularly in comic books and cartoons for young girls.
平假名和片假名是特别简单的音节文字。利比里亚的瓦伊人有 280 个符号,埃塞俄比亚音节文字用于书写阿姆哈拉语有 251 个符号。目前使用的最大的音节文字可能是藏缅语系彝语使用者使用的文字。彝语文字包含 756 个音节符号(以及 63 个以上的汉语借词字素)。更复杂的是,许多字符都有不同的形式来表示口语彝语的三种不同音调。
Hiragana and katakana are particularly simple syllabaries. The syllabic script of the Vai people of Liberia has 280 symbols, and the Ethiopic syllabary, used to write Amharic, has 251 symbols. Perhaps the largest syllabic script in current use is used by the speakers of Yi, a Tibeto-Burman language. The Yi script contains 756 syllabic symbols (and 63 more graphemes for Chinese loan words). To complicate matters, many characters have separate forms to represent the three different tones of spoken Yi.
许多英语单词的拼写与其发音并不一致,部分原因是英语拼写是在元音大推移(参见 第 8 章)改变许多英语单词发音之前建立的。事实上,英语拼写几乎在所有方面都与音位原理背道而驰:
The spelling of many English words does not consistently correspond to their pronunciation, in part because English spelling was established before the Great Vowel Shift (see Chapter 8) changed the pronunciation of many English words. In fact, English spelling diverges from the phonemic principle in just about every way possible:
在字母表中,书面符号代表口语的音素——辅音和元音。(在下一节中,我们将讨论辅音字母,例如阿拉伯语和希伯来语,其中只有辅音用字母表示。)已知最小的字母表是Mura-Piraha,在巴西亚马逊地区使用(10 个字母),罗托卡语,在新几内亚使用(11 个字母)。毫不奇怪,这两种语言也是世界上音素库最少的语言。亚美尼亚语是目前使用字母最多的语言,共有 38 个字母。
In an alphabet, the written symbols represent the phonemes – both consonants and vowels – of the spoken language. (In the next section we will discuss consonantal alphabets, like Arabic and Hebrew, in which only consonants are represented by letters.) The smallest known alphabets are those for Mura-Piraha, spoken in the Amazon region of Brazil (10 letters) and for Rotokas, spoken in New Guinea (11 letters). Not surprisingly, these two languages also have the smallest inventories of phonemes of the world’s languages. Armenian has the largest currently used alphabet, with 38 letters.
字母系统或多或少地按照音素原理是指字母和音素之间一一对应的关系。在完全遵循音素原理的字母表中,口语的音素和字母表中的字母在两个方向上都完全对应:书写者可以根据发音准确地拼写出每个单词,而说话者可以根据拼写发出每个单词的音。大多数语言的音素准确性都不足,原因有几个。在许多情况下,语言改编了另一种语言的字母表。此外,一种语言的口语形式往往比其书写系统变化得更快(尽管字母书写系统确实倾向于减慢其语言中的声音变化)。 西班牙语的音素和字母之间几乎是一一对应的。虽然可以根据单词的拼写准确地发音,但有些音素由多个字母表示,因此不可能根据每个单词的发音预测其拼写。
Alphabetic systems are organized, more or less, according to the phonemic principle of a one-to-one relationship between letter and phoneme. In an alphabet which followed the phonemic principle perfectly, the phonemes of the spoken language and letters of the alphabet would correspond perfectly in both directions: a writer could accurately spell every word from its pronunciation, and a speaker could pronounce every word from its spelling. Most languages fall short of phonemic accuracy, for several reasons. In many cases, languages adapted alphabets from another language. Also, the spoken form of a language tends to change more rapidly than its writing system (although alphabetic writing systems do tend to slow down sound change in their languages). Spanish comes close to a one-to-one correspondence between phonemes and letters. It is possible to pronounce words accurately from their spellings, but some phonemes are represented by more than one letter, so it is not possible to predict the spelling of every word from its pronunciation.
由于本教科书的读者对英文字母非常熟悉,因此我们将仔细研究韩语字母,即韩文。朝鲜半岛从公元前 108 年至公元 313 年被中国占领,韩国人从公元 5 世纪开始使用中文书写。韩语和日语一样,有多种动词变体,人们设计了各种汉字变体来表示这些动词变体,直到 15 世纪中叶,世宗大王下令创建了一种新的书写系统,称为韩文(字面意思是“韩语字母”)。自 1949 年以来,大多数韩国文学和非技术出版物都使用韩文,但在韩国学术论文和官方文件中,源自中文的韩语词有时仍用汉字书写。
Because readers of this textbook are very familiar with the English alphabet, we will take a closer look at Hangul, the Korean alphabet. Northern Korea was occupied by China from 108 BCE to 313 CE, and Koreans wrote in Chinese from the fifth century CE forward. Korean, like Japanese, has a variety of verbal inflections and various adaptations of Chinese characters were devised to represent them until the middle of the 1400s when King Sejong commissioned a new writing system, which was called Hangul (literally, ‘Korean letters’). Since 1949, most Korean literature and nontechnical publications have used Hangul, but in South Korean academic papers and official documents Korean words of Chinese origin are still sometimes written in Chinese characters.
韩语在表示韩语音素方面高度系统化。它一共有 24 个字母:14 个辅音和 10 个元音。代表辅音的字母表明,1444 年设计出韩语字母表的学者团队非常熟悉语音;一些辅音的形状,如 /k/ 、 /n/
、 /s/
、 /m/
和 / ŋ /
,代表了发这些声音的声道形状。其他辅音是通过在基本形状上添加线条而创建的,代表它们的语音关系;例如,考虑 /n/
、 /t/
和 / ɹ /之间的关系
,或 /m/
和 /p/之间的关系
。
Hangul is highly systematic in its representation of Korean phonemes. There are 24 letters: 14 consonants and 10 vowels. The letters representing the consonants show that the team of scholars who devised the alphabet in 1444 were very familiar with phonetics; the shapes of some consonants, like /k/ , /n/ , /s/ , /m/ and /ŋ/ , represent the shapes of the vocal tract in making those sounds. Other consonants were created by adding lines to the basic shapes, representing their phonetic relationship; for example, consider the relation between /n/ , /t/ , and /ɹ/ , or between /m/ , and /p/ .
双音符号表示辅音是喉音化的(即喉咙紧张,如否定呼噜声unh-unh)。此外,韩语还会在某些辅音上添加变音撇号,以表示它们是送气的。
The doubled signs indicate that the consonants are glottalized (that is, the throat is tensed, as in the negative grunt unh-unh). In addition, Hangul adds a diacritic apostrophe to some consonants to indicate that they are aspirated.
韩语辅音字母非常清楚地展示了音位原理的应用。在韩语中,一些辅音音素的发音因它们在单词中出现的位置不同而不同。例如,音素 /k/ 有两个音位变体:清音 [k] 和浊音 [g]。同样,音素 / ɹ / 有两个音位变体:[ ɹ ] 和 [l]。用一个字母来表示一种语言的所有音位变体是低效的;试图在声音和字母之间建立一一对应关系的字母表
需要的字母比只表示音素的字母表多得多。这也是不必要的;正如韩语使用者会自动将音位变体(例如 [g])“翻译”为其底层音素(/k/)一样,韩语读者也知道软腭塞音 [k] 和 [g] 由一个字母表示,流音 [ ɹ ] 和 [l] 由一个字母表示
。
The letters for Korean consonants demonstrate application of the phonemic principle very clearly. In Korean, some consonantal phonemes are pronounced differently depending on where they appear in a word. For example, the phoneme /k/ has two allophones: unvoiced [k] and voiced [g]. Similarly, the phoneme /ɹ/ has two allophones: [ɹ] and [l]. It would be inefficient for an alphabet to represent all the allophones of a language; an alphabet attempting to create a one-to-one relationship between sounds and letters would require many more letters than an alphabet representing only phonemes. It would also be unnecessary; just as speakers of Korean automatically “translate” an allophone (for example, [g]) into its underlying phoneme (/k/), so too Korean readers know that the velar stops [k] and [g] are represented by the single letter and that the liquids [ɹ] and [l] are represented by the single letter .
韩语元音字母基于三个元素:人(垂直线)、地(水平线)和天(最初是一个点,后来演变为一条短线)。与辅音字母一样,相关元音和双元音的字母也类似;例如,考虑表示 [a]、[æ]、[ja] 和 [jæ] 的字母。
The letters for Korean vowels were based on three elements: man (a vertical line), earth (a horizontal line), and heaven (originally a dot which evolved into a short line). Like the letters for consonants, the letters for related vowels and dipthongs are similar; for example, consider the letters representing [a], [æ], [ja], and [jæ].
与源自希腊字母的字母不同,韩语字母形象地反映了辅音和元音之间的明显区别。元音字母的笔画和形状与辅音字母不同。这使得交替出现的辅音和元音符号在视觉上更容易辨别,字母排列成单词的方式也是如此。
Unlike alphabets derived from the Greek alphabet, the Korean alphabet iconically reflects the categorical difference between consonants and vowels. The vowel letters are constructed from a different set of strokes and shapes than the consonant letters. This makes alternating consonant and vowel symbols more visually discernible, as does the way the letters are arranged into words.
用韩语书写单词时,字母按音节分组。请注意,一些韩语元音的字母(例如 /o/、/u/、/ ɨ /)是水平排列的,而其他一些元音(例如 /i/、/a/、/e/)则由一条或多条垂直线组成。大多数韩语音节由一个辅音和一个元音(CV)或一个辅音-元音-辅音(CVC)组成。在带有“垂直”元音的音节中,第一个辅音和元音并排放置,如下面(2a)所示。如果元音后面有辅音,则将其放置在前两个字母下方,如(2b)所示。在带有“水平”元音的音节中,第一个辅音放置在元音上方,如(2c)所示,任何后续辅音都放置在元音下方,如(2d)所示。
When writing words in Hangul, letters are grouped by syllables into blocks. Notice that the letters for some Hangul vowels, such as /o/, /u/, /ɨ/, are laid out horizontally, while others, such as /i/, /a/, /e/, are made of one or more vertical lines. Most Korean syllables consist of a consonant followed by a vowel (CV) or a consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC). In syllables with a “vertical” vowel, the first consonant and the vowel are placed side by side, as in (2a) below. If there is a consonant following the vowel, it is placed below the first two letters, as in (2b). In syllables with a “horizontal” vowel, the first consonant is placed above the vowel, as in (2c), and any following consonant is placed below the vowel, as in (2d).
| (2) |
韩语音节书写 Hangul syllable writing |
空格位于单词之间,单词可以写在从上到下、从右到左的垂直列中,也可以写在从左到右的水平行中。
Spaces are placed between words, which can be written in vertical columns running from top to bottom and right to left, or in horizontal lines running from left to right.
韩语兼具字母和音节文字的优点。图形符号数量相对较少,形状系统相关,音素透明度高,易于学习,而将字母分组为音节块则提供了结构分割(严格线性字母表中没有),使阅读更容易。
Hangul combines the strengths of an alphabet and a syllabary. The relatively small inventory of graphic symbols, with systematically related shapes and strong phonemic transparency, is easy to learn, while the grouping of those letters into syllable blocks provides a structural segmentation (not found in strictly linear alphabets) which makes reading easier.
在某些书写系统(如阿拉伯语和希伯来语)中,只有辅音用字母表示;元音则通过辅音的变化或变音符号表示。这些辅音字母表有时被称为辅音音素字母表。(正如字母表以希腊字母表的前两个字母( alpha和beta )命名一样,辅音音素字母表以阿拉伯辅音字母表中的四个字母命名,这四个字母分别对应于 A、B、J 和 D。)
In some writing systems (like the Arabic and Hebrew scripts), only consonants are represented by letters; vowels are indicated by changes to or diacritics on the consonants. These consonantal alphabets are sometimes called abjads. (Just as alphabets are named for the first two letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha and beta), abjads are named for four letters in the Arabic consonantal alphabet which correspond to A, B, J, and D.)
阿拉伯字母表由 28 个基本字母组成,代表阿拉伯辅音和长元音。三个长元音 /a:/、/i:/ 和 /u:/ 写在单词中,但短元音通常被省略;它们通常只在《古兰经》和其他古典文本中用其他字母上方和下方的变音线和点来表示,偶尔也出现在儿童或外国人的文本中。阿拉伯语从右到左书写,大多数字母以草书形式连接到单词中任何前面或后面的字母。由于这些草书连接,每个字母在连接到前面或后面的字母时形状略有不同,如图12.9所示。
The Arabic alphabet consists of twenty-eight basic letters representing Arabic consonants and long vowels. The three long vowels /a:/, /i:/, and /u:/ are written in words, but the short vowels are usually omitted; they are normally only indicated – using diacritic lines and points above and below other letters – in the Qur’an and other classical texts, and occasionally in texts for children or foreigners. Arabic is written right to left, and most letters are connected cursively to any preceding or following letters within a word. Because of these cursive connections, the shape of each letter varies slightly when connected to a preceding or following letter, as shown in Figure 12.9.
辅音字母表非常适合表示口语阿拉伯语,因为它具有“词根和模板”形态。回想一下第 2 章,阿拉伯语中的词根是仅由辅音组成的粘着词素,必须用元音完成才能派生一个单词。例如,阿拉伯语中的词根ktb具有“写”的一般含义,但为了派生不同的单词,必须用特定模式中的特定元音填充ktb 的声音序列。下面(3)中的所有三个单词都用相同的辅音字母书写:(分别为 [k]、[t] 和 [b],以它们的独立形式书写)。示例 (3)显示它们从右向左书写并以草书形式连接。图 12.10显示了更长的阿拉伯语书面样本。
A consonantal alphabet is well suited to representing spoken Arabic because of its “root-and-template” morphology. Recall from Chapter 2 that lexical roots in Arabic are bound morphemes consisting of only consonants, which must be completed with vowels to derive a word. For example, the root ktb in Arabic has the general meaning ‘write’ but the sequence of sounds ktb must be filled in with specific vowels in specific patterns in order to derive different words. All three words in (3) below would be written with the same consonantal letters: ([k], [t], and [b], respectively, in their isolated forms). Example (3) shows them written from right to left and cursively connected. Figure 12.10 shows a longer sample of written Arabic.
| (3) |
阿拉伯 Arabic
|
Mny rdrs f nglsh thnk tht rdng cnsnntl lphbt wld b dffclt, bt s ths sntnc shws, mny nglsh wrds cn b rd wtht thr vwls。部分原因是熟练的读者(任何文字)会阅读“整个单词”;他们不会读出每个字母。阿拉伯语的日常文本很少使用变音符号来标记短元音。阿拉伯语读者阅读辅音模板,将其与特定的语义集(例如书写)相关联,然后使用周围的上下文来找出可能需要的任何进一步含义。
Mny rdrs f nglsh thnk tht rdng cnsnntl lphbt wld b dffclt, bt s ths sntnc shws, mny nglsh wrds cn b rd wtht thr vwls. This is in part because proficient readers (of any script) read “whole words”; they don’t sound out each letter. Everyday texts in Arabic rarely use diacritics to mark short vowels. Arabic readers read the consonant template, associate it with a particular semantic set (for example, writing) and then use the surrounding context to figure out any further meaning that might be necessary.
中东和北非有 30 多种不同的阿拉伯语方言。有些方言(例如,巴勒斯坦阿拉伯语和黎凡特阿拉伯语,在黎巴嫩和叙利亚使用)可以互相听懂,但其他地理上较远的方言(如摩洛哥使用的马格里布语和沙特阿拉伯、伊拉克、约旦和叙利亚使用的纳吉迪语)则不能。如第 11 章所述,阿拉伯语已经发展出一种双言系统,许多地方“低”方言的使用者共享一种“高”方言和一种书写系统。辅音字母,如中文的表意文字,非常适合应对在许多地方言中跨越不同发音的挑战。正如我们在第 8 章和第 9 章中看到的,元音特别容易发生变化随着时间的推移,许多方言中词语发音的差异都是元音的差异。
There are over thirty different colloquial dialects of Arabic throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Some dialects (for example, Palestinian Arabic and Levantine Arabic, spoken in Lebanon and Syria) are mutually intelligible, but other, more geographically distant dialects (like Magrebi, spoken in Morocco, and Najdi, spoken in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria) are not. As described in Chapter 11, Arabic has developed a system of diglossia, in which speakers of many local “low” dialects share one “high” dialect – and one writing system. A consonantal alphabet, like the logographic script of Chinese, is well suited to the challenge of spanning varying pronunciations across many local dialects. As we saw in Chapters 8 and 9, vowels are particularly susceptible to change over time, and therefore many dialectal differences in the pronunciation of words are vowel differences.
阿拉伯文字系统与伊斯兰教的传播密切相关。大约在公元四世纪,阿拉伯文字从阿拉姆语字母,腓尼基语和希腊语(以及拉丁语)字母也是从这种字母发展而来的。公元 7 世纪,《古兰经》以阿拉伯字母书写,从此以后,宗教和书写系统共同成为中东和北非统一的文化力量。随着中世纪的伊斯兰军队征服北非和现代西班牙并向东向亚洲进发,阿拉伯文字被改编为许多土著语言。从非洲(例如柏柏尔语、索马里语和斯瓦希里语)到中东(例如波斯语)和亚洲(例如乌尔都语、普什图语和马来语)的语言都以阿拉伯文字为基础发展了文字。
The Arabic writing system is closely related to the spread of Islam. Around the fourth century CE, the Arabic script evolved from the Aramaic script, from which the Phoenician and Greek (and eventually Latin) alphabets also developed. In the seventh century CE, the Qur’an was written in the Arabic script, and the religion and the writing system together have served as a unifying cultural force in the Middle East and North Africa ever since. As Islamic armies in the Middle Ages conquered North Africa and modern-day Spain and moved east toward Asia, the Arabic script was adapted to many indigenous languages. Languages from Africa (e.g. Berber, Somali, and Swahili) to the Middle East (e.g. Farsi) and Asia (e.g. Urdu, Pashto, and Malay) developed scripts based on the Arabic script.
所有书写系统都趋向于保守;一旦整个语言社区广泛接受了代表口语的惯例,即使是改变特定单词的拼写也需要付出很大努力。当一种语言适应另一种语言的书写系统时,通常会发生更广泛的变化和创新。阿拉伯文字与神圣的《古兰经》有着密切的联系,几个世纪以来几乎没有变化,而口语方言则发生了巨大的发展和多样化,以满足使用者不断变化的需求。因此,阿拉伯语社区的双语现象部分归因于其书写系统的保守性。
All writing systems tend to be conservative; once the conventions for representing a spoken language have been accepted widely throughout a speech community, it takes a lot of effort to change even the spelling of particular words. Broader changes and innovations usually take place when one language adapts the writing system of another language. The Arabic script – with its strong connection to the Qur’an, a sacred text – has changed very little over the centuries, while the spoken dialects have developed dramatically and diversified to meet the changing needs of their speakers. The diglossia of the Arabic speech community, then, is in part due to the conservatism of its writing system.
请考虑以下电子邮件交流:
Consider the following email exchange:
转发的消息: 接到 Cmabrigde Uinervtisy 的一份报告,单词中的字母顺序并不重要,唯一的提示是第一行和最后一行字母在正确的位置。 列表可能是一个完整的 mses,您仍然可以阅读它,尽管存在问题。
Forwarded message: Aoccdrnig to a rschreearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
这是因为人类的思维不是通过阅读单词来理解每一个词语,而是通过将其作为一个整体来理解。
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
回应:我听说这是一个网络词,但你看,它起作用了!我得想想。我觉得它是一种粗略的 cbtmroianail pssbltoiieis 词。不知道它只出现在四个或更多单词中,并且如果单词长度超过五个字母(如“cbtmroianail pssbltoiieis”!),则无法进行区分。我正在计划将所有单词放在单词前面,然后先将单词放在前面;您认为哪一个更困难?
Response: I’ve hraed that this is a web mtyh, but yroue rhigt, it wrkos! I’ll hvae to tnhik auobt tihs. Smees taht it’s llragey a mtaetr of rudceed cbtmroianail pssbltoiieis. Ntoe how it only mtatres in wrdos of fuor lttrees or mroe, and rllaey dsnoet mkae mcuh dffrnciee ulnses the wrod is lngeor than fvie lterets (like ‘cbtmroianail pssbltoiieis’!). I’m plnyaig wtih lndaoig all the mddlie cnsntoaos in the frnot of the wrod veusrs puitntg the veowls fisrt; wichh do you tinhk is more diuifflct to uaednrtsnd?
文字可以通过多种方式反映其语言社区的文化。在中世纪,伊斯兰法律禁止在艺术作品中表现人类或动物。因此,穆斯林艺术家经常采用“阿拉伯式”设计(基于几何形状或叶子和花朵的图案)或书法(字面意思是“美丽的书写”)进行装饰。例如,basmalahs是出自《古兰经》的短语。下面是《古兰经》的开篇语:“以仁慈、宽容的真主名义。”大型basmalahs经常悬挂在清真寺或其他公共场所。
A script can reflect the culture of its speech community in many ways. In medieval times, Islamic law prohibited the representation of humans or animals in art. As a result, Muslim artists often resorted to “arabesque” designs (based on geometrical forms or patterns of leaves and flowers) or to calligraphy (which literally means ‘beautiful writing’) for decoration. For example, basmalahs are phrases from the Qur’an. Those below present the opening words of the Qur’an: “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” Large basmalahs are often hung in mosques or other public places.
第 11 章讨论了一个人的语言如何成为其民族和种族身份的重要组成部分。书写系统也是身份的象征,因此也是有争议的领域。阿拉伯文字的历史提供了四大洲书写政治的例子:
Chapter 11 discussed how one’s language is an important part of one’s national and ethnic identity. Writing systems are also symbols of identity, and therefore are contested territory. The history of the Arabic scripts provides examples of the politics of writing from four continents:
书写系统的历史发展是一个发现和阐述图形符号代表口语的能力的过程,同时发明和改进了用于制作、存储和(最终)复制书写的物理媒介。在下一节中,我们将看到这三个要素(语言、物质和社会)如何结合在一起,形成了一个戏剧性的文化发展螺旋。这就是如今许多欧洲语言使用的“拉丁”字母的故事。重要的是要记住,世界各地的其他文字都有自己的历史——交织着自己的语言和文化背景。
The historical development of writing systems is a process of discovering and elaborating the capacities of graphic symbols to represent the spoken language, combined with the invention and refinement of physical media for producing, storing, and (eventually) reproducing writing. In the following section, we will see how these three elements – linguistic, material, and social – came together to produce a dramatic spiral of cultural development. This is the story of what became the “Latin” alphabet used today by many European languages. It is important to remember that other scripts around the world have their own histories – weaving together their own linguistic and cultural contexts.
在许多古代社会中,神话常常将文字的发明归功于诸神,并承认许多社会制度都依赖于文字。在古埃及,人们认为文字的发明者是托特神。托特是诸神的抄写员和历史学家,负责记录历法,并(并非巧合地)发明了艺术和科学。书写保存信息的能力被视为一种超自然的工具。托特可以将语言转化为物质对象,古埃及人认为,要想永生,一个人的名字必须永远写在某个地方。他们称他们的象形文字为“神的话语”。书写经常被视为与诸神交流的一种方式,人们常常认为书面文字表达了神圣的真理。例如,在古代中国,用于占卜的甲骨文是沟通天地的媒介。许多当代宗教也声称其书写文本的来源是神。
In many ancient societies, myths often attributed the invention of writing to the gods and recognized the dependence of many social institutions on writing. In ancient Egypt, the god Thoth was given credit for inventing writing. Thoth was the scribe and historian of the gods, responsible for keeping the calendar and (not coincidentally) for inventing art and science. The power of writing to preserve information was seen as a supernatural tool. Thoth could transform speech into material objects, and ancient Egyptians believed that to become immortal a person’s name must be written somewhere forever. They called their hieroglyphic script “god’s words.” Writing was frequently represented as a way of communicating with the gods, and written texts often were believed to express divine truth. In ancient China, for example, inscribed oracle bones used for divination served as a medium for communication between heaven and earth. Many contemporary religions claim divine provenance for their written texts, as well.
10 万年前的考古发现表明,我们的早期祖先使用图形符号和助记符(记忆)工具来存储信息。图形符号(例如,人物、花朵、动物和太阳)被用来代表各种人类体验。至少 3 万年前,人类就开始绘画,称为洞穴墙壁上的岩画。这些洞穴壁画象形文字——世界上物体的文字表示。象形文字将符号与其指称物直接联系起来;它不指称指称物的口语。有时这被称为初级象征。解读象形文字不需要观众“阅读”口头语言。例如, (4)中的简单线条画代表一条鱼,但不需要你使用鱼来知道它的意思。
Archaeological finds from 100,000 years ago show that our early ancestors used graphic symbols and mnemonic (memory) tools to store information. Graphic symbols (for example, of human figures, flowers, animals, and the sun) were used to represent various kinds of human experience. At least 30,000 years ago, human beings were painting pictures, called petroglyphs, on cave walls. These cave paintings are pictograms – literal representations of objects in the world. A pictogram makes a direct connection between the symbol and its referent; it doesn’t refer to the spoken word for the referent. This is sometimes called primary symbolization. Interpreting a pictogram does not require the viewer to “go through” the spoken language. For example, the simple line drawing in (4) represents a fish, but it doesn’t require you to use the word fish to know what it means.
| (4) |
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象形文字也不会给你提供任何线索来表明所指物体的单词是什么,或者如何发音;(4)可以很容易地被称为鱼、泊松或鱼。
A pictogram also does not give you any clues to what the word for the referred-to object might be, or how it is pronounced; (4) could just as easily be called a fish, poisson, or pesce.
岩画的创作者还用文字来指代画中的动物。这些洞穴壁画是文字的第一步——文字与其所指事物之间的视觉联系。
The creators of petroglyphs also referred to the animals in their paintings with words. These cave paintings were the first step toward writing – a visual link between a word and the thing it refers to.
早期的原始文字系统使用象形文字来直接表示物体(和想法)。纳西族是居住在中国云南省的藏缅语族,他们使用一种尚存的象形文字系统。纳西族拥有一种象形文字系统,帮助东巴(萨满)在宗教仪式上吟诵仪式经文。纳西东巴文中的 1,400 个符号中有 90% 是象形文字,它们直接代表世界上的物体,而不是纳西语中的单词或其他形式。因此,您大概可以对图 12.11中相关的一些传说有一个大致的了解。然而,虽然你可能会猜到和
都是某种哺乳动物,但你可能不知道前者是水獭,后者是老虎,你对故事的理解就会受到影响。同样,
允许相当多的解释。(有关象形文字的普遍性和模糊性的进一步测试,请参阅练习 12.1-2。
Early protowriting systems used pictograms to directly represent objects (and ideas). A surviving pictographic writing system is used by the Naxi, a Tibeto-Burman-speaking people in China’s Yunnan province. The Naxi have a pictographic writing system which helps the Dongba (shamans) recite ritual texts during religious ceremonies. Ninety percent of the 1,400 symbols in the Naxi Dongba script are pictograms, which directly represent objects in the world, rather than words or other forms in the Naxi language. For this reason, you can probably get a general idea of some of the legend related in Figure 12.11. However, while you might guess that and are both mammals of some kind, you probably wouldn’t know that the former is an otter and the latter is a tiger, and your comprehension of the story would suffer. Likewise, allows for quite a range of interpretations. (See Exercises 12.1–2 for further tests of the universality and ambiguity of pictograms.)
美国核管理委员会负责储存放射性半衰期为 10,000 年的危险核废料。20 世纪 80 年代,该委员会委托研究制定一种通用警告,即使过了 10,000 年,任何人都可以理解。一份报告由语言学家撰写托马斯·西比奥克 (Thomas Sebeok) 的结论是,没有任何信息、代码和沟通渠道能够保证跨越一万年的语言和文化变迁。你可以在 他的书《我认为我是一个动词:对符号学说的更多贡献》( 1986 ) 的第 13 章中读到他的理由。
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is responsible for storing dangerous nuclear waste with a radioactive half-life of 10,000 years. In the 1980s, it commissioned research to devise a universal warning that would be interpretable by anyone, even after 10,000 years. A report, written in part by linguist Thomas Sebeok, concluded that there was no message, code, and channel of communication that could be guaranteed to bridge ten millennia of language and culture change. You can read his reasons in Chapter 13 of his book I Think I am a Verb: More Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs (1986).
即使是代表更抽象概念的象形文字也代表现实世界中的事物,如图12.12所示。(数字代表口语中的声调。)
Even pictograms for more abstract notions represent things in the real world, as shown in Figure 12.12. (The numbers refer to tones in the spoken language.)
由于必须记住这么多的图形符号,因此要精通纳西东巴文字可能需要十五年以上的时间。
Because this large inventory of graphic signs must be memorized, it can take over fifteen years to become proficient in the Naxi Dongba script.
一小部分纳西语手势确实代表了口语。这些手势是字谜,表示一个概念的符号也表示另一个概念,因为两个词的发音相似。例如,“食物”和“睡眠”的发音都是xa 3,因此表示“食物”的符号(看起来像一个锅)也用于表示“睡眠”。
A small percentage of Naxi signs do represent the spoken language. These are rebuses, where a symbol for one concept also represents another concept because the two words sound alike. For example, the words for ‘food’ and ‘sleep’ are both pronounced xa3, so the symbol for ‘food’ (which looks like a pot) is also used for ‘sleep.’
“食物”和“睡眠”的单词和书面符号仅通过相同的发音联系起来——而罐子并不以图形方式表示睡眠——因此,要理解“睡眠”的含义,需要了解纳西口语(具体而言,“食物”和“睡眠”具有相同的口语形式)。即使不了解纳西语,也可以猜出和“食物”之间的联系。但和“睡眠”之间的联系
必然通过语言来介导。有时这被称为
二次符号化,是书写系统的显著特征;书写形式直接代表语言的某些单位(音素、音节或单词),并且
只有通过这些语言单位,书写形式才能指代世界上的物体和概念。
The words and written symbols for ‘food’ and ‘sleep’ are linked only by their common pronunciation – and a pot does not represent sleep pictorially – so knowledge of spoken Naxi (specifically, that ‘food’ and ‘sleep’ share the same spoken form) is required to understand the meaning of ‘sleep.’ The link between and ‘food’ could be guessed at without knowing any Naxi. But the link between and ‘sleep’ is necessarily mediated through the language. This is sometimes called secondary symbolization, and is the distinguishing characteristic of a writing system; the written forms directly represent some units of the language (phonemes, syllables, or words), and only through those linguistic units do the written forms refer to objects and concepts in the world.
文字服务并反映使用者的需求。早期的农业社会是围绕谷物的种植、储存和交换而组织的。啤酒是发酵过的谷物。因此,一些最古老的苏美尔铭文记录了分配给每个公民的每日啤酒配给量,这并不奇怪。世界上最古老的文学作品也在苏美尔泥板上发现,包括五首诗《吉尔伽美什循环》。
Writing serves and reflects the needs of its users. Early agrarian societies were organized around the cultivation, storage, and exchange of grain. Beer is fermented grain. It is no surprise, then, that some of the oldest written Sumerian inscriptions record the daily beer ration allotted to each citizen. The world’s oldest literature has been found on Sumerian tablets as well, including the five-poem Gilgamesh cycle.
文字似乎是在几个地方独立发明的(包括中国、墨西哥,可能还有埃及),但文字发明最有据可查的例子是美索不达米亚(现代伊拉克)。文字的发展始于人类从狩猎采集部落进化为更持久的农业社会。农业生活的稳定性更高,导致社会和经济更加复杂。交换谷物、牲畜和土地的人们需要记录他们的交易,统治者和牧师需要记录税收,为此他们早在公元前 8000 年就开始使用刻有粘土的“计数标记”。粘土比洞穴墙壁在交易交流方面有了很大的改进。它易于刻字、易于擦除、易于保存(通过烘烤)且便于携带。这些计数器不完全是象形文字,因为它们通常只包含几条风格化的线条,但它们还不是书写系统。
Writing seems to have been invented independently in several places (including China, Mexico, and possibly Egypt), but the best-documented case of the invention of writing is in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). The development of writing began as human beings evolved from hunter–gatherer tribes to more permanent agrarian societies. The greater stability of agricultural life led to greater social and economic complexity. People exchanging grain, livestock, and land needed to record their transactions, and rulers and priests needed to record taxes, for which they began to use incised clay “counting tokens,” as early as 8000 BCE. Clay was a great improvement over cave walls for transactional communication. It was easy to inscribe, easy to erase, easy to preserve (by baking), and portable. The counters were not quite pictograms, since they typically held only a few stylized lines, but they were not yet a writing system.
向二次符号化的过渡可能发生在公元前 3500 年左右,或许是受到使用者非常世俗的需求的启发。随身携带大量代币可能会很麻烦,因此苏美尔人开始将它们放在小粘土信封中携带,这种信封被称为印章。最终,印章本身也刻上了所封装代币的数量和种类(Schmandt-Besserat 1992)。印章上的铭文是符号的符号。大约在同一时间,苏美尔人开始在粘土板上记录相同的信息(商品的数量和种类),使用芦苇笔制作楔形标记。
The transition to secondary symbolization probably took place around 3500 BCE, perhaps inspired by a very mundane need of its users. Carrying large numbers of individual tokens around could be cumbersome, so Sumerians started carrying them in small clay envelopes, called bullæ. Eventually, the bullæ themselves were inscribed with the number and kind of tokens enclosed (Schmandt-Besserat 1992). The bullæ inscriptions were symbols of symbols. Around the same time, the Sumerians began to record the same information (number and kind of commodity) on clay tablets, using a reed stylus to make wedge-shaped marks.
苏美尔人现在已经准备好迈出走向成熟书写系统的下一步。例如,当苏美尔人在交易中使用面粉的代币时,他们可能会说苏美尔语中的“面粉”一词 [zid]。随着时间的推移,这个符号会与单词的发音松散地联系在一起。随着粘土铭文在越来越多的场合使用,必须设计越来越多的符号来指代更多的对象。但粘土和手写笔这种媒介限制了人们可以发明的各种符号的数量(尤其是抽象概念),而记忆则限制了人们能记住多少符号。有一天,一位苏美尔抄写员发现了一种捷径——字谜。当一个单词的图形符号与该单词的发音紧密相关时,它就可以用于表示另一个发音相同的单词(同音词)。例如,苏美尔语单词 [im] 是一个同音词,表示“粘土”和“风”;两个词都用字素来表示
。歧义——在特定的使用实例中字素代表两个同音词中的哪一个——通常可以根据使用上下文来解决。
The Sumerians now were ready for the next step toward a full-fledged writing system. When Sumerians used tokens for flour in transactions, for example, they might say the Sumerian word for ‘flour’ [zid]. Over time, the symbol would have become loosely associated with the sound of the word. As clay inscriptions were used in more and more contexts, more and more symbols had to be devised for more referents. But the medium of clay and stylus limited the number of different kinds of symbols one can invent (especially for abstract concepts), and memory limited how many of these could be remembered. At some point, a Sumerian scribe discovered a shortcut – the rebus. When the graphic symbol for one word was firmly associated with the sounds of that word, it could then be used to represent another word with the same pronunciation (its homophone). For example, the Sumerian word [im] is a homophone meaning both ‘clay’ and ‘wind’; both words were represented by the grapheme . Ambiguity – which of the two homophones the grapheme represented in a particular instance of use – could usually be resolved from the context of use.
使用字谜可以使文字更加高效(用更少的字素表示更多的单词)。但是,当字谜的二次符号化(字素直接表示声音或声音序列,然后表示这些声音的指称)被系统地应用于所有声音时,书写系统才真正发展起来。在苏美尔语中,第一个字谜可能是单音节词建立了字素与音节之间的联系后,寻找捷径的抄写员发现,他们可以将字素(每个字素代表一个音节)组合起来,以表示由这些音节组合而成的单词:
The use of rebuses makes a script more efficient (representing more words with fewer graphemes). But a writing system really develops when the secondary symbolization of the rebus – the grapheme directly representing a sound or sequence of sounds and then the referents of those sounds – is applied systematically to all sounds. In Sumerian, the first rebuses were probably single-syllable words. Having made the grapheme–syllable connection, scribes looking for shortcuts then discovered that they could combine graphemes (each representing a single syllable) to represent words made of combinations of those syllables:
[ka] ‘门’ + [ba] ‘分发,赠送’
= [ka ba] ‘谈话’
[ka] ‘gate’ + [ba] ‘to distribute, give as a gift’ = [ka ba] ‘to talk’
[ka] ‘门’ + [bad] ‘打开’
= [ka bad] ‘张开嘴’
[ka] ‘gate’ + [bad] ‘to open’ = [ka bad] ‘to open the mouth’
[zid] '面粉' + [baba] = [zidbaba] '粥'
[zid] ‘flour’ + [baba] = [zidbaba] ‘porridge’
苏美尔楔形文字主要是一种音节书写系统(其中的一些非语音字素可能源自象形文字),但一旦建立了视觉符号和声音符号之间的联系,那么有人发明字母表只是时间问题。字素和声音之间的联系也使字素不必以某种方式直观地表示其指称物,它们变得更加抽象、风格化和随意。例如,早期楔形文字是从上到下成列书写的,但在公元前三千年,符号被旋转了 90 度,从左到右书写。
Sumerian cuneiform was a mostly syllabic writing system (with some nonphonetic graphemes probably derived from pictograms), but once the link between visual symbol and sound symbol had been established, it was just a matter of time before someone invented the alphabet. The link between grapheme and sound also freed the graphemes from having to somehow visually represent their referents, and they became more abstract, stylized, and arbitrary. For example, early cuneiform was written in columns from top to bottom, but during the third millennium BCE the signs were rotated 90 degrees and written from left to right.
公元前 2500 年,苏美尔上层阶级的子弟开始接受学校的培训,成为宗教和政府机构的书记员,记录法律和商业交易。图书馆建立起来是为了储存记录,允许将法律和商业合同作为先例。口语苏美尔语在公元前 1800 年左右消亡,但由于苏美尔文字记录了数百年的历史、法律、商业和宗教,它继续作为一种“学习”的书面语言使用(就像欧洲中世纪的拉丁语一样)一千多年。
By 2500 BCE schools were established to train sons of the Sumerian upper classes to be scribes for religious and government bureaucracies and to record legal and business transactions. Libraries were established to store records, allowing laws and business contracts to be referred to as precedent. Spoken Sumerian died out around 1800 BCE, but with centuries of history, law, business, and religion recorded in the Sumerian script, it continued to be used as a “learned” written language (much like Latin was during the Middle Ages in Europe) for more than a thousand years.
“楔形文字”一词源于拉丁语cuneus,意为“楔子”,因此任何由楔形符号组成的文字都可以称为楔形文字。楔形文字被中东和小亚细亚的许多语言社区采用,包括阿卡德人(他们大约公元前 2350 年,苏美尔人(说闪米特语)和赫梯人(说印欧语)诞生,大约公元前 1800 年。系统语音化的飞跃使楔形文字与其他语言高度适应。如果另一种语言的音节与苏美尔语相似,它可以采用苏美尔语的字素;如果另一种语言的音节不同,它可以发明新的字素。
The word “cuneiform” derives from Latin cuneus, meaning ‘wedge,’ so any script made of wedge-shaped signs can be called cuneiform. Cuneiform was adapted by a number of speech communities in the Middle East and Asia Minor, including the Akkadians (who spoke a Semitic language) around 2350 BCE, and the Hittites (who spoke an Indo-European language) around 1800 BCE. The leap to systematic phoneticization made cuneiform highly adaptable to other languages. Where another language had syllables similar to Sumerian, it could adopt Sumerian graphemes; where it had different syllables, it could invent new graphemes.
烧制的泥板几乎坚不可摧。在已发现的数千块泥板中,只有一小部分被翻译过。1975 年,在叙利亚发现了 15,000 块泥板,这是公元前 2300 年被烧毁的图书馆的遗迹,据估计还有数千块泥板有待发现。
Fired clay tablets are virtually indestructible. Only a fraction of the thousands of tablets that have been found have been translated. In 1975, 15,000 tablets were discovered in Syria, the remains of a library that burned in 2300 BCE, and it is estimated that many thousands more remain to be discovered.
“象形文字”一词源于希腊语hieros(神圣的)和glypho(铭文)。已知最早的埃及文字可追溯到公元前 3300 年。(由于埃及象形文字和苏美尔楔形文字的最早记录日期相似,学者们对这两种文字是否独立发明存在分歧。)与早期苏美尔楔形文字一样,早期埃及文字显然是出于经济动机。最早的考古发现记录了作为税收支付的亚麻和石油。
The word “hieroglyph” comes from the Greek hieros ‘sacred’ plus glypho ‘inscriptions.’ The earliest known examples of writing in Egypt date to 3300 BCE. (Because of the similar dates of the earliest records of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform, scholars disagree on whether the two scripts were invented independently or not.) Like early Sumerian cuneiform, early Egyptian writing was apparently motivated by economics. The earliest archaeological finds record deliveries of linen and oil paid as taxes.
和楔形文字一样,象形文字最初是象形文字,但后来演变成一种复杂的文字,结合了表意文字(代表词素)、表音文字(代表一个、两个或三个辅音)和限定词(语义分类词)。许多表意文字反映了它们的象形文字起源。例如,“房子”的字形是 而“太阳”的字形是
。从这些象形符号中,埃及抄写员根据以下原则导出了世界上第一个字母表:首音法,其中单词的象形文字代表该单词的第一个辅音。因此,例如,埃及语中表示“猫头鹰”的单词以 [m] 音开头,因此表示“猫头鹰”的字形
就变成字母m。同样,表示“脚”的单词以 [b] 音开头,因此字形
就变成字母b。有 26 个单辅音字形和大量双辅音和三辅音字形。没有元音表示。使用 26 个单辅音字形可以写下每个埃及单词,但这仅限于涂鸦。限定词是添加到单词末尾以澄清其含义的字形。限定词是必要的,因为与阿拉伯辅音字母,可以用相同的辅音序列拼写出几个不同的单词。
Like cuneiform signs, hieroglyphs started out as pictograms, but they evolved into a complex script combining logograms (representing morphemes), phonograms (representing one, two, or three consonants), and determinatives (semantic classifiers). Many logograms reflected their pictographic origins. For example, the glyph for ‘house’ is and the glyph for ‘sun’ is . From such pictographic symbols, Egyptian scribes derived the world’s first alphabet by the principle of acrophony, in which a hieroglyph for a word came to represent the first consonant of that word. So, for example, the Egyptian word for ‘owl’ began with an [m] sound, so the glyph for ‘owl’ became the letter m. Similarly, the word for ‘foot’ began with a [b] sound, so the glyph became the letter b. There were 26 uniconsonantal glyphs and numerous bi- and triconsonantal glyphs. Vowels were not represented. With the 26 uniconsonantal glyphs it was possible to write every Egyptian word, but this was only done in graffiti. Determinatives are glyphs that were added at the end of a word to clarify its meaning. Determinatives were necessary because, as with the Arabic consonantal alphabet, several different words may be spelled with the same sequence of consonants.
象形文字以水平线书写,从左到右或从右到左,或以垂直线书写,从上到下。任何象形文字的方向都很容易辨别;动物和人物总是面向行首。
Hieroglyphic script was written in horizontal lines running either from left to right or from right to left, or in vertical columns running from top to bottom. The direction of any piece of hieroglyphic writing is easy to figure out; the animals and people always face the beginning of the line.
四千年来,埃及文字有三种不同的版本:象形文字、僧侣体和世俗体,尽管它们在外观上有所不同,但都是同一种书写系统。象形文字(公元前 3300 年 - 公元 400 年)主要用于石碑上的正式铭文。僧侣体(公元前 3100-650 年)是一种草书形式的象形文字,用于日常使用(政府、商业和宗教文件),用墨水写在纸莎草纸上。世俗体文字(公元前 650 年 - 公元 450 年)取代了僧侣体,成为日常使用,尽管僧侣体继续用于宗教书写。公元四世纪末,罗马皇帝狄奥多西一世下令关闭整个罗马帝国的所有异教神庙,象形文字知识被埋没了一千四百年。
There were three different versions of the Egyptian script used over the course of four thousand years – hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic – but though they differed in appearance, they were the same writing system. Hieroglyphic (3300 BCE – 400 CE) was used mainly for formal inscriptions on stone monuments. Hieratic (3100–650 BCE) was a cursive form of hieroglyphic writing for everyday use – government, business, and religious documents – written in ink on papyrus. The demotic script (650 BCE – 450 CE) replaced hieratic for everyday use, although hieratic continued to be used for religious writing. In the late fourth century CE, the Roman emperor Theodesius I ordered all pagan temples throughout the Roman empire to be closed, and knowledge of the hieroglyphic script was buried for fourteen hundred years.
早在古埃及象形文字被废弃之前,它就开创了一种新的书写系统,即拉丁字母的前身。从象形文字到拉丁字母的演变由几个连续的主导文化完成:腓尼基人、希腊人和罗马人。
Long before it fell into disuse, the Egyptian hieroglyphic script had launched a new writing system, the ancestor of the Latin alphabet. The evolution from hieroglyphics to the Latin alphabet would be carried by several successive dominating cultures: the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Romans.
大约公元前 2000 年,为埃及人工作的迦南抄写员意识到,埃及辅音字母表可以改编为代表他们自己语言的三十个辅音。由于字母字素代表单个音素段,因此字母表可以在适应新的口语时添加或删除字母。这使得字母表比表意文字或音节书写系统更容易适应其他语言。如果语言 B 改编了语言 A 的字母表,语言 B 可以使用语言 A 的字母来表示两种语言共有的声音。对于语言 B 中没有而语言 A 中没有的声音,语言 B 可以制作创造新字母(因为字母的具体形式并不重要)。B 语言的使用者经常会“回收”A 语言字母表中的字母来表示他们自己语言中的新声音。例如,埃及单辅音字母表中的 [n] 音由表示水的符号表示,因为埃及语中表示水的单词以 [n] 开头。早期迦南字母表借用了这个符号,将其风格化为几个波浪,并用它来表示 [m] 音。我们的字母m就是这些波浪的后代。
Around 2000 BCE, Canaanite scribes working for the Egyptians realized that the Egyptian consonantal alphabet could be adapted to represent the thirty consonants of their own language. Because alphabetic graphemes represent individual phonemic segments, alphabets can add or drop letters as they are adapted to new spoken languages. This made alphabets much easier to adapt to other languages than logographic or even syllabic writing systems. If Language B were adapting an alphabet from Language A, Language B could use letters from Language A for sounds which the two languages shared. For sounds in Language B that Language A didn’t have, Language B could make up new letters (since the particular form of a letter didn’t matter). Often speakers of Language B would “recycle” letters from Language A’s alphabet to represent new sounds in their own language. For example, the sound [n] in the Egyptian uniconsonantal alphabet was represented by the symbol for water , since the Egyptian word for water started with [n]. Early Canaanite alphabets borrowed this symbol, stylized it to just a few waves, and used it to represent the sound [m]. Our letter m is the descendant of those waves.
罗塞塔石碑现藏于伦敦大英博物馆,为破译埃及象形文字提供了钥匙。1799 年,拿破仑的军队在埃及作战时发现了它。罗塞塔石碑有三种不同的文字。中间的文字是用埃及世俗体书写的。底部的文字是用公元前三世纪在东地中海地区广泛使用的通用希腊语书写的。破损的顶部是用埃及象形文字书写的。
The Rosetta Stone, currently in the British Museum in London, provided the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was found in 1799 by Napoleon’s troops, while fighting in Egypt. The Rosetta Stone has three different scripts. The center text is written in the Egyptian demotic script. The bottom text is written in koine Greek, spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean in the three centuries BCE. The broken top is in Egyptian hieroglyphic.
公元前 196 年,罗塞塔石碑被雕刻出来时,埃及使用三种文字。象形文字用于重要的纪念碑;世俗体文字是日常文字;希腊语是当时埃及统治者的语言。罗塞塔石碑上的文字是为了纪念埃及法老托勒密五世,列举了他为埃及祭司和人民所取得的成就。
When the Rosetta Stone was carved in 196 BCE, three scripts were being used in Egypt. Hieroglyphic was used for important monuments; demotic was the everyday script; and Greek was the language of the rulers of Egypt at the time. The text of the Rosetta Stone honors the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemaios V, listing his accomplishments for the priests and people of Egypt.
让-弗朗索瓦·商博良 (Jean-François Champollion) 于 1822 年破译了象形文字。他已经了解希腊文和埃及世俗体文字,认识到中间和下面的文本是相同的,并猜测上面的象形文字也代表相同的文本。他首先将七个已知的世俗体符号与它们的象形文字对应物进行匹配。以这七个象形文字为“锚”,他能够猜出相邻符号的含义,他的破译从此开始。商博良还利用他对科普特语(古埃及基督教后裔的语言)的了解发现象形文字既有语音价值,也有象征意义。
Jean-François Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822. He already knew the Greek and demotic Egyptian scripts, recognized that the middle and lower texts were identical, and guessed that the hieroglyphs above represented the same text as well. He began by matching seven known demotic signs to their hieroglyphic counterparts. With these seven hieroglyphs as “anchors,” he was able to guess the meaning of neighboring signs, and his deciphering went from there. Champollion also used his knowledge of Coptic (the language of Christian descendants of ancient Egyptians) to discover that hieroglyphs have phonetic values as well as symbolic meaning.
在接下来的两千年里,辅音字母从一种语言传播到另一种语言。原始迦南语演变为阿拉姆语(早期圣经文本的文字),希伯来语和阿拉伯语均由该文字演变而来。(阿拉姆语也可能是大多数印度文字的来源。)原始迦南文字也演化为腓尼基文字(约公元前 1000 年),并因当时的贸易文化而广为传播。每次演化都会有一些字母消失,一些字母增加,一些字母被赋予新的辅音。字母的形式也发生了一些变化。
Over the next two thousand years, the consonantal alphabet spread from language to language. Proto-Canaanite evolved into the Aramaic script (the script of early biblical texts), from which both Hebrew and Arabic evolved. (The Aramaic script also may have been the source of most Indian scripts.) The Proto-Canaanite script also evolved into the Phoenician script (c. 1000 BCE), which was spread widely by that trading culture. Each time, a few letters would be lost, a few added, and a few assigned to new consonants. The form of letters changed somewhat as well.
大约公元前 900 年,希腊人开始将腓尼基文字改编为他们的语言。他们面临一个问题。在闪米特语中,所有单词都以辅音开头,因此辅音字母表效果很好。但希腊语单词通常以元音开头,许多希腊语单词包含两个连续的元音。仅使用辅音字母书写希腊语单词是行不通的。解决办法是将音位原理扩展到元音——为元音和辅音分配字母。希腊语中不存在的腓尼基辅音字母被“回收”来表示希腊语元音。例如,如图 12.15所示,代表希腊语中未使用的声门塞音的 Phoenician被分配给元音 [a]。同样,
代表声门擦音 [h] 的 Phoenician 被分配给元音 [e]。希腊抄写员还添加了几个表示腓尼基语所没有的辅音的新符号(可能是从米诺斯音节文字中回收的)。
Around 900 BCE, the Greeks began to adapt the Phoenician script to their language. They faced a problem. In Semitic languages, all words begin with consonants, so a consonantal alphabet works well. However, Greek words often start with vowels, and many Greek words include two vowels in sequence. Writing Greek words using only consonantal letters would not work. The solution was to extend the phonemic principle to vowels – to assign letters to vowels as well as consonants. The letters for Phonenician consonants which did not exist in Greek were “recycled” to represent Greek vowels. For example, as Figure 12.15 shows, Phoenician , which represented a glottal stop not used in Greek, was assigned to the vowel [a]. Similarly, the Phoenician , representing the glottal fricative [h], was assigned to the vowel [e]. Greek scribes also added several new signs (probably recycled from a Minoan syllabary) for consonants which Phoenician did not have.
公元前一千年,希腊在军事、经济和文化上统治了地中海世界,进一步传播了字母表。字母表既包括元音字母,也包括辅音字母,这种灵活性使其能够轻松适应所接触到的每一种语言。意大利半岛的伊特鲁里亚人在公元前 700 年左右采用了希腊字母,删除了口语中不属于音素的字母。伊特鲁里亚字母又在公元前 600 年左右被罗马人采用。当今大多数欧洲语言使用的拉丁字母都是从该字母演变而来的。
Greece’s military, economic, and cultural domination of the Mediterranean world in the first millennium BCE further spread the alphabet. The flexibility of an alphabet including letters for both vowels and consonants made it easily adaptable to each language that was exposed to it. The Etruscans of the Italic peninsula adapted the Greek script around 700 BCE, dropping letters for sounds which were not phonemic in spoken Etruscan. The Etruscan alphabet was adapted in turn by the Romans around 600 BCE. The Latin alphabet used by most European languages today evolved from that script.
到目前为止,我们已经看到,书写是为了满足日益复杂的社会不断发展的需求而发展起来的。书写保存信息的能力使其成为一种宝贵的统治工具。书写帮助统治者记录税收和贡品,维护农业和宗教日历,并管理广阔而复杂的帝国。出于这些原因,书写曾经是(现在仍然是)一种社会资本——一种可以获得社会和经济资源的技能。
So far, we have seen that writing evolved in response to the developing needs of increasingly complex societies. The power of writing to preserve information made it a valuable tool for governing. Writing helped rulers keep records of taxes and tributes, maintain agricultural and religious calendars, and administer far-flung and complex empires. For these reasons, writing was (and still is) a form of social capital – a skill that offers access to social and economic resources.
由于其永久性,书写是一种保守的工具;它允许“反复检查、验证和评论”(Coulmas 2003:225)。它有选择地保存某些信息(而未书写的信息则会消失),正如古老的谚语“历史是由胜利者书写的”所承认的那样。书写(和复制)的内容成为文化的一部分——其历史、文学经典、宗教教义和民法。
Because of its permanency, writing is a conservative tool; it allows “repeated inspection, verification, and comment” (Coulmas 2003: 225). It selectively preserves certain information (while unwritten information fades), as recognized in the old adage that “History is written by the victors.” What gets written (and reproduced) becomes a part of the culture – its history, literary canons, religious doctrine, and civil laws.
书写在社会组织中发挥着重要作用。一方面,它可以创造新的社会阶层。古代苏美尔、埃及和中国的抄写员属于特权阶层,中世纪的僧侣也是如此,他们主要在抄经室抄写文本。另一方面,识字的分配——谁可以读写——几个世纪以来一直是社会工程的工具。大多数社会中的奴隶被剥夺了识字的权利,因为这赋予了他们权力。在 20 世纪上半叶的美国南部,识字测试被用来剥夺非裔美国人的投票权。
Writing plays a role in the organization of societies. On the one hand, it can create new social classes. Scribes in ancient Sumeria, Egypt, and China were members of a privileged class, as were monks during the Middle Ages, who were largely employed copying texts in scriptoria. On the other hand, the distribution of literacy – who gets to read and write – has been a tool of social engineering for centuries. Slaves in most societies were denied literacy because of the empowerment it offered. In the American South in the first half of the twentieth century, literacy tests were used to deny African Americans their voting rights.
在中世纪,书写和阅读的能力是一项宝贵的技能,只有那些控制社会的人才能拥有——教会成员、政府和社会和经济精英。控制识字能力有助于统治者控制人口。教会控制着谁能学习说和写拉丁语。由于圣经只用拉丁语印刷(而不是当地的方言或口语),牧师必须在当地教徒和上帝之间进行调解,教会以这种方式维持其政治权力。例如,意大利教堂里美丽的壁画是视觉辅助工具,是漫画圣经,牧师用它来教育文盲民众正确行事。精心描绘的地狱景象,以及与特定罪行相关的特定折磨,是一种社会控制形式。同样,宫殿和市政厅里描绘国王和公爵事迹的巨幅壁画是宣传作品,旨在提醒人民统治者的威力和保护。
Through the Middle Ages, the ability to write and read was a valuable skill, restricted to those who controlled society – members of the church, the government, and the social and economic elite. Controlling access to literacy helped rulers to control populations. The church controlled who learned to speak and write Latin. Because bibles were printed only in Latin (not in the local vernacular, or spoken language), the priest had to intercede between local churchgoers and God, and in this way the church maintained its political power. For example, the beautiful frescoes in Italian churches were visual aids, comic-book bibles, used by priests to educate an illiterate populace to behave correctly. Elaborate visions of hell, with specific tortures associated with particular sins, were a form of social control. Likewise, gigantic murals in palaces and town halls, depicting the deeds of kings and dukes, were works of propaganda, designed to remind the people of the might and protection of their rulers.
书写技术,尤其是印刷机和活字印刷术的发明,在读写能力的民主化中发挥了重要作用。在中世纪,卷轴和书籍只能手工复制。彩绘手稿(主要是宗教文本)在修道院中复制,修道院也充当知识的宝库。然而,重点是保存知识,而不是发现新知识知识。十二、十三世纪大学的兴起对教会对知识的垄断提出了挑战,大学产生了对世俗知识的需求。 研究印刷术对欧洲文化影响的历史学家伊丽莎白·艾森斯坦 (Elizabeth Eisenstein) 指出,随着大学开始建立图书馆,信息量也随之增长,因为书籍可以相互比较 (Eisenstein 1983 )。学者可以同时研究多种观点。知识不一定来自对世界的直接体验,也可以来自书籍。
Technologies of writing, especially the invention of the printing press and moveable type, played an important role in the democratization of literacy. Through the Middle Ages, scrolls and books could only be reproduced by hand. Illuminated manuscripts (mostly of religious texts) were copied in monasteries, which also served as repositories of knowledge. However, the emphasis was on preservation of knowledge, not discovery of new knowledge. The church’s monopoly on knowledge was challenged by the rise of universities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which created a demand for secular knowledge. Elizabeth Eisenstein, a historian of the impact of print on European culture, points out that as universities began to build libraries, information grew because books could be compared (Eisenstein 1983). Scholars could examine a range of opinions at one time. Knowledge did not have to come from direct experience of the world, but could come from books as well.
中世纪晚期也见证了商人阶层的崛起,以及对外部世界的兴趣日益浓厚,但书籍复制成本限制了世俗知识的传播。即使是十字军从中东带回的新文本(以及后来从世界各地的探险中带回的文本),其影响力也有限,因为它们必须手工抄写。
The late Middle Ages also saw the rise of the merchant class and a related rising interest in the outside world, but the cost of reproducing books constrained the spread of secular knowledge. Even the influx of new texts, brought back from the Middle East by returning crusaders (and later from explorations around the world), had limited impact because they had to be copied by hand.
印刷机(1436 年)和活字印刷术(1452 年)的发明, 约翰内斯·古腾堡和 15 世纪造纸厂的普及大大降低了文本复制的成本。这反过来又极大地影响了印刷的内容以及谁可以书写和阅读文本。到 1500 年,欧洲有 1,000 家印刷厂,共印刷了 35,000 种不同文本,共计 2,000 万份。书籍不再局限于复制旧知识;受大航海时代发现的推动,有关世界的新信息和新理论得以广泛传播。统治阶层对写作和知识的控制被大大削弱。
The invention of the printing press (1436) and especially moveable type (1452), by Johannes Gutenberg, and the spread of paper mills in the 1400s, radically reduced the cost of reproducing texts. This, in turn, radically affected what got printed and who got to write and read texts. By 1500 there were 1,000 printing shops in Europe, which had produced 20 million copies of 35,000 different texts. Books were no longer restricted to reproducing old knowledge; new information and theories about the world – fueled by the discoveries of the age of exploration – could be distributed widely. The ruling establishment’s grip on writing – and on knowledge – was dramatically weakened.
始于 16 世纪初的新教改革是第一次革命性的群众运动,其部分推动力得益于印刷宣传。马丁·路德的《九十五条论纲》(1517 年)抗议牧师出售赎罪券,并质疑罗马天主教会作为人与上帝之间的调解人的角色。有趣的是,路德的《论纲》是一份讨论邀请,以书面形式提出,“以便那些无法出席并与我们进行口头辩论的人可以通过信件进行讨论。”新教改革的迅速传播当然是受到当时社会条件的推动,但廉价印刷的宣扬新教信息的小册子也促进了这一进程。
The Protestant Reformation, beginning in the early 1500s, was the first revolutionary mass movement, made possible in part by printed propaganda. Martin Luther’s “Ninety-Five Theses” (1517) protested the selling of indulgences by priests and disputed the Roman Catholic Church’s role as intercessor between people and God. Interestingly, Luther’s “Theses” were an invitation to a discussion, offered in writing so “that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter.” The rapid spread of the Protestant Reformation was certainly motivated by the social conditions of the time, but it was facilitated by inexpensively printed pamphlets proclaiming the Protestant message.
书写也是语言标准化的重要工具。书写系统本质上是保守的;建立字素清单与它们所代表的声音(或音节或词素)之间的传统配对的努力是巨大的,而且变革面临着强烈的阻力。例如,尽管英语拼写存在许多不规则之处(见下文“拼写改革”框),但改革英语拼写的尝试一直没有成功。重大创新通常发生在一个语言社区借用另一个语言社区的书写系统时,摆脱了其先前的文化包袱。
Writing is also an important tool for language standardization. Writing systems are inherently conservative; the effort to establish conventional pairings between an inventory of graphemes and the sounds (or syllables or morphemes) they represent is considerable, and changes face stiff resistance. For example, despite its many irregularities (see the box below on “Spelling reform”), attempts to reform English spelling have been unsuccessful. Major innovations typically have occurred when one speech community borrowed the writing system of another, free of much of its prior cultural baggage.
讽刺的是,书写在欧洲“本土语言”的兴起中扮演了重要角色。公元 476 年罗马帝国灭亡后,西班牙、法国和意大利使用的拉丁语版本越来越不同。8 世纪末,为了阻止“拉丁语的腐败”,神圣罗马帝国皇帝查理曼大帝下令拉丁语的发音应与书写一致。因为只有一小部分人口能够理解拉丁语的发音。神圣罗马帝国是识字的,而“加洛林改革”实际上加剧了书面拉丁语和其方言之间的差异。当方言词汇不再与书面拉丁语形式相关时,它们被(或多或少地按语音)转录为“新”词汇,最终成为西班牙语、法语和意大利语。
Ironically, writing played an important role in the rise of the “vernacular languages” in Europe. After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE, the versions of Latin spoken in Spain, France, and Italy drifted farther and farther apart. In the late 700s, in an effort to stem the “corruption of Latin,” the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne decreed that Latin should be pronounced as it is written. Because only a small fraction of the population of the Holy Roman Empire was literate, the “Carolingian reform” actually contributed to a widening of differences between written Latin and its vernaculars. When vernacular words could no longer be related to their written Latin forms, they were transcribed (more or less phonetically) as “new” words of what eventually became the Spanish, French, and Italian languages.
在中世纪的大部分时间里,欧洲都维持着双语体系。拉丁语是整个欧洲的“高级方言”,其文字用于学术、宗教和政府写作。路德用拉丁语写下了他的《九十五条论纲》,但新教小册子很快就以各种白话文印刷,进一步推动了拉丁语的传播。当拉丁语不再是唯一的识字语言时,用白话文印刷的文本的增加有助于教育的民主化,这进一步刺激了识字在社会各个阶层的传播。1500 年,欧洲每年出版约 20 万册书籍。2000 年,全世界出版了约 100 亿本书、8000 份日报和 70000 多本周刊和月刊——每人 50 磅纸张(Man 2000)。这还不包括万维网,因为它增长太快 — — 并且有太多的冗余页面 — — 因此进行有意义的计数是有问题的。
Europe maintained a diglossic system for most of the Middle Ages. Latin was the “high dialect” throughout Europe, its script used for academic, religious, and governmental writing. Luther wrote his “Ninety-Five Theses” in Latin, but Protestant pamphlets were soon printed in a range of vernacular languages, further fueling its dissemination. The increase of texts printed in vernacular languages helped democratize education, once Latin was not the only literate language, which further spurred the spread of literacy throughout widening circles of society. In 1500, Europe was publishing around 200,000 volumes per year. In the year 2000, the world published about 10 billion books and 8,000 daily newspapers and over 70,000 weekly and monthly magazines – 50 pounds of paper per person (Man 2000). This does not include the World Wide Web, which grows so fast – and has so many redundant pages – that a meaningful count is problematic.
书写技术在冻结英语正字法方面也发挥了作用。 1476 年,威廉·卡克斯顿 (William Caxton) 在英国设立了第一台印刷机,他面临一个难题:他应该如何拼写英语单词?音位原则听起来很简单,但英语曾经(现在仍然)有许多方言,其中一些几乎无法相互理解。卡克斯顿做出了一个明智的商业决策;他根据客户的方言拼写大多数单词,这些客户大多来自伦敦及其周边地区。卡克斯顿和其他早期英国印刷商使用的正字法传播得如此之快,并变得根深蒂固,以至于 500 年后——以及一次大元音推移——许多英语单词的拼写仍然与 15 世纪有文化的伦敦人的发音相同。
Technologies of writing played their role in freezing English orthography as well. When William Caxton set up the first printing press in England in 1476, he faced a dilemma: how should he spell English words? The phonemic principle sounds easy in principle, but English had (and still has) many dialects, some of them virtually mutually unintelligible. Caxton made a sound business decision; he spelled most words according to the dialect of his customers, most of whom were from London and its surrounding counties. The orthography used by Caxton and other early British printers was spread so quickly and became so firmly entrenched that 500 years – and a Great Vowel Shift – later many English words are still spelled as they were pronounced by literate Londoners in the fifteenth century.
欧盟委员会刚刚宣布了一项协议,根据该协议,英语将成为欧洲国家的官方语言,而不是德语,德语是另一种可能性。作为谈判的一部分,英国政府承认英语拼写仍有改进空间,并接受了一项为期五年的分阶段实施计划,该计划将被称为“欧洲英语”。
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Nation rather than German, which was the alternative possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English.”
第一年, s将取代软c。这无疑会让公务员们欣喜若狂。硬c将不再使用,取而代之的是k。这应该会消除混淆,键盘可以少一个字母。第二年,麻烦的ph将由 f 取代,届时公众的热情将日益高涨。这将使像 fotograf 这样的单词缩短 20%。
In the first year, s will replace the soft c. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard c will be dropped in favour of k. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome ph will be replaced with the f. This will make words like fotograf 20 percent shorter.
在第三年,公众对新拼写的接受预计将达到可能进行更复杂改变的阶段。
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
政府将鼓励删除双字母,因为双字母一直是拼写错误的障碍。此外,所有人都同意,语言中不发音的“e”是可耻的,应该取消。
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent e in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
到了第四年,人们将能够接受诸如用z代替th和用v 代替w等步骤。在第五个月期间,可以从包含ou的词中删除不必要的o ,在最后一个月之后,我们将拥有一种真正明智的写作风格。我们将不再感到困惑或困惑,每个人都会发现它很容易理解。一个统一的村庄的梦想最终会实现。
By the fourth yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing th with z and w with v. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary o kan be dropd from vords kontaining ou and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
如果你想要知道一个单词在意大利语中是如何拼写的,你可以问它是如何“书写的”(scriversi)。意大利语单词的标准发音几乎完全遵循其拼写。标准口语方言和意大利语拼写之间的关系可以追溯到近 800 年前,并体现了文字、威望、权力和语言标准化之间的关系。
If you want to know how a word is spelled in Italian, you ask how it “is written” (scriversi). The standard pronunciation of an Italian word follows nearly exactly from its spelling. The relation of the standard spoken dialect and Italian spelling goes back nearly 800 years, and illustrates the relation of writing, prestige, power, and language standardization.
尽管意大利的历史可以追溯到罗马人和伊特鲁里亚人之前,但它是一个相对年轻的国家,成立于 19 世纪 60 年代,由数十个城邦组成,这些城邦的公民讲着多种不同的意大利语方言。直到今天,意大利的各个地区都有自己的方言,其中一些方言几乎无法相互理解。
Although its history goes back to the Romans and the Etruscans before them, Italy is a relatively young nation, formed in the 1860s from dozens of city-states whose citizens spoke many different dialects of Italian. To this day, the regions of Italy have their own dialects, some of which are almost mutually unintelligible.
书面意大利语在国家语言的形成过程中发挥了重要作用。在中世纪,意大利语是一种口语,大多数写作都用拉丁语完成。在十三世纪,流行作家但丁·阿利吉耶里、彼特拉克和薄伽丘帮助推广佛罗伦萨的托斯卡纳方言,使其成为意大利的文学语言。佛罗伦萨在文艺复兴时期的艺术地位(以及佛罗伦萨统治者美第奇家族的经济和政治统治地位)巩固了佛罗伦萨的文化领导地位,托斯卡纳方言成为整个意大利的政治和文化语言。莱昂·巴蒂斯塔·阿尔伯蒂于 1495 年出版了第一本意大利语语法,名为“佛罗伦萨语言规则”,在十五和十六世纪,意大利语(根据托斯卡纳发音拼写)在大多数写作领域逐渐取代了拉丁语。当意大利的独立地区于 19 世纪 60 年代统一时, 佛罗伦萨方言成为了官方的国家语言,由于该方言的文学血统和作为书面标准的悠久历史,这一选择变得更容易。
Written Italian played an important role in the creation of a national language. In the Middle Ages, Italian was a spoken vernacular and most writing was done in Latin. During the thirteenth century, the popular writers Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, and Boccaccio helped popularize the Tuscan dialect of Florence as the literary language of Italy. The artistic eminence of Florence during the Renaissance (and the financial and political dominance of Florence’s ruling Medici family) cemented Florence’s cultural leadership, and the Tuscan dialect became the language of politics and culture throughout Italy. Leon Battista Alberti published the first grammar of Italian, entitled “Rules of the Florentine language,” in 1495, and during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Italian (spelled according to Tuscan pronunciation) slowly replaced Latin in most domains of writing. When the independent regions of Italy were united in the 1860s, la lingua Fiorentina became the official national language, a choice made easier by the dialect’s literary pedigree and long history as the written standard.
在十九世纪和二十世纪,一些社会科学家声称书写是文明的显著特征,但必须认识到,许多复杂的社会从未发展出书写系统。有些社会,如印加人,使用一系列带结的绳索(称为结绳)来记录,并编织了复杂的挂毯日历。其他人,如美国中西部的密西西比人,建造了复杂的城市,但显然根本没有记录系统。
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some social scientists claimed that writing was a distinguishing characteristic of civilization, but it is important to recognize that many complex societies never developed writing systems. Some, like the Incas, used a series of ropes with knots (called a quipu) for record keeping and wove complex tapestry calendars. Others, like the Mississipians in the American Midwest, built complex cities but apparently had no record-keeping system at all.
还有一种倾向,尤其是在拉丁字母使用者当中,宣称字母书写系统优于音节和表意文字系统,甚至优于辅音字母。然而,正如没有一种“最佳”语言一样,也没有一种“最佳”书写系统。中文表意文字比字母更复杂,但它们也编码了更多信息。音节系统和辅音字母与拉丁字母一样适合其语言结构和其语言社区的需求。万一你忘记了,尽管英语使用了“完整”的字母表,但大约 50% 的英语单词的拼写需要记忆!
There is also a tendency, especially among users of the Latin alphabet, to proclaim the superiority of alphabetic writing systems over syllabic and logographic systems, and even over consonantal alphabets. However, just as there is no one “best” language, there is no one “best” writing system. Chinese logographs are more complex than alphabetic letters, but they also encode more information. Syllabic systems and consonantal alphabets are as suited to the structure of their languages and the needs of their speech communities as is the Latin alphabet. And in case you’ve forgotten, the spellings of some 50 percent of English words need to be memorized, despite its use of a “complete” alphabet!
此外,问题不仅仅在于书写系统处理信息的相对效率;一个人的书写系统,就像他的语言或方言一样,是身份的象征,因此不易改变。尽管中文汉字很复杂,但韩国人花了 500 年的时间才接受了简单的韩文字母。日本人有两个音节,每个音节都能代表他们的语言,但仍然使用汉字来象征文化遗产和价值观。
In addition, the question is not just the relative efficiency of a writing system to process information; a person’s writing system, like his/her language or dialect, is a symbol of identity, and therefore not easily changed. It took 500 years for Koreans to accept the straightforward Hangul alphabet, despite the complexity of Chinese hanzi. The Japanese have two syllabaries, each capable of representing their language, but continue to use kanji to symbolize cultural heritage and values.
写作是一种延伸和放大口语许多功能的工具。正如考古学家通过分析一种文化的工具,我们可以了解很多有关该文化的知识,同样,通过了解其书写系统,我们可以了解很多有关该文化及其语言的知识。书写系统在其口语结构的约束下发展起来,以满足其语言社区的交流需求。每一种书写系统——表意文字、音节文字、字母文字和辅音字母文字——都是形式和功能之间复杂平衡的产物。随着语言社区的发展,其书写系统也在发展,以响应新的需求并促进或加速某些社会变革。
Writing is a tool which extends and amplifies many of the functions of spoken language. Just as archaeologists can learn a lot about a culture by analyzing its tools, we can learn a lot about cultures and their languages by understanding their writing systems. Writing systems developed within the constraints of the structure of their spoken language to meet the communicative needs of their speech community. Each kind of writing system – logographic, syllabic, alphabetic, and consonantal alphabetic – is the product of a complex balance between form and function. As speech communities have developed, so too have their writing systems, responding to new needs and facilitating or hastening some social changes.
表意文字系统,即每个书面符号代表口语中的一个词素,在形式上适用于汉语等屈折形态较少的语言。它们有助于统一方言差异较大的语言群体;即使方言互不相通的使用者发音截然不同,他们也能读出相同的词符。在音节书写系统中,每个书面符号代表口语的一个音节,尽管大多数音节系统使用额外的变音符号来表示额外的语音信息。音节系统特别适合日语等音节简单(音节数量有限)的语言。在韩语和英语等字母系统中,书面符号代表口语的音素。(在辅音字母表中,如阿拉伯语,只有辅音用字母表示。)由于它们代表最小的有意义的意义单位,因此字母系统很容易适应新的语言。
Logographic systems, in which each written sign represents a morpheme in the spoken language, are formally appropriate to languages, like Chinese, with little inflectional morphology. They help to unify speech communities with broad dialect variation; even when speakers of mutually unintelligible dialects pronounce a word very differently, they can read the same word symbol. In syllabic writing systems, each written symbol represents a syllable of the spoken language, though most syllabic systems use additional diacritic symbols to indicate additional phonetic information. Syllabic systems are particularly well suited to languages, like Japanese, with simple syllables (and a limited syllable inventory). In alphabetic systems, like Hangul and English, the written symbols represent the phonemes of the spoken language. (In consonantal alphabets, like Arabic, only consonants are represented by letters.) Because they represent the smallest meaningful units of meaning, alphabetic systems were easily adapted to new languages.
文字是从象形文字发展而来的,象形文字是直接表示世界上的物体,使用初级符号。随着向二级符号的飞跃 苏美尔楔形文字的书写形式直接代表了口语的某些单位(音素、音节或单词),并且仅通过口语来指代世界上的物体和概念。几个世纪以来,埃及象形文字发展出了一种辅音字母表,而历代主流文化——腓尼基人、希腊人和罗马人——都将其改编成自己的语言。
Writing developed from pictograms which were direct representations of objects in the world, using primary symbolization. With the leap to secondary symbolization in Sumerian cuneiform, written forms directly represented some units of the spoken language (phonemes, syllables, or words), and referred to objects and concepts in the world only through the spoken language. Over centuries, Egyptian hieroglyphics developed a consonantal alphabet which successive dominant cultures – the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Romans – adapted to their own languages.
书写在人类文化的发展中发挥着深远的作用,尽管其影响有时似乎相互矛盾。一方面,书写发挥着保守的力量,通过保存社会秩序的历史、法律和价值观来维持社会秩序。几个世纪以来,控制读写能力的途径使少数特权阶层垄断了大多数知识领域。书写甚至减缓了语言的变化,因为它冻结了早期的发音并设定了规范的语法标准。另一方面,许多语言社区的识字率提高促进了社会变革。书写中保存的知识通过新技术传播得越来越广泛,比如最初的印刷术以及最近的计算机和互联网。
Writing has played a profound role in the development of literate human cultures – although its effects sometimes seem contradictory. On one hand, writing exerts a conservative force – sustaining social orders by preserving their histories, laws, and values. For centuries, controlling access to literacy preserved a monopoly on most domains of knowledge for the privileged few. Writing has even slowed language change, by freezing earlier pronunciations and setting prescriptive grammatical standards. On the other hand, increasing literacy in many speech communities has facilitated social change. And the knowledge preserved in writing has been distributed more and more widely by new technologies – first print and more recently the computer and the internet.
也许写作对现代文化最深远的影响是我们对知识本身的看法。正如道格拉斯·比伯(Douglas Biber)(1988;3)所指出的,“写作的永恒性……使我们直面前几代人的错误‘知识’,从而培养了对知识的批判态度。”写作通过迫使我们面对先前的观念并不断质疑我们自己的信念,促进了知识的进步。
Perhaps the most profound effect of writing on modern cultures has been the way we think about knowledge itself. As Douglas Biber (1988; 3) has pointed out, “The permanency of writing … confronts us with the incorrect ‘knowledge’ of earlier generations and thereby fosters a critical attitude towards knowledge.” Writing has fostered the advance of knowledge by forcing us to confront prior conceptions and continually question our own beliefs.
您可能认为象形文字(直接、非任意地表示指称对象,并且与语言形式无关)是通用的。基于这一假设,象形文字经常用于国际旅行者的标志。但即使是非常容易辨认的象形文字(例如用于指示男女洗手间的象形文字),其含义也部分是传统的,它们的含义随着时间的推移而固定下来。事实上,象形文字系统往往会留下很大的解释空间,因为物体的图形表示因文化而异。考虑下面的阿兹特克象形文字。每个象形文字代表什么?根据下面列出的含义检查您的答案。您正确解释了多少?试着找出为什么您错了。
You might think that pictograms – representing a referent directly and nonarbitrarily and not being linked to the forms of a language – would be universal. Based on this assumption, pictograms are often used in signs for international travelers. But even very recognizable pictograms, like those used to indicate restrooms for men and women, are partially conventional, their meaning fixed by frequent use over time. In fact pictographic systems tend to leave a good bit of room for interpretation because the pictorial representation of an object varies by culture. Consider the Aztec pictograms below. What does each represent? Check your answers against the meanings listed below. How many did you interpret correctly? Try to figure out why you got some wrong.
以下是象形文字普遍性的另一个测试:
Here’s another test of the universality of pictograms:
列出 5-10 个指称项,一些物理对象(如“树”)和一些非物理概念(如“疾病”)。
Make a list of 5–10 referents, some physical objects (like ‘tree’) and some nonphysical concepts (like ‘sickness’).
让两个朋友分别画出代表列表上每个指称物的简单象形图。(它们应该足够简单,以便其他人可以轻松复制它们。)
Ask two friends to independently draw simple pictograms representing each of the referents on your list. (They should be simple enough that someone else could easily reproduce them.)
比较一下你朋友的象形文字:它们是否相同?他们表示实物的象形文字是否比表示概念的象形文字更相似?
Compare your friends’ pictograms: are they the same? Are their pictograms for the physical objects more similar than those for concepts?
让你的朋友解释一下他们的象形文字。他们的“理论”是否系统化(解释所有甚至部分象形文字)或者每个象形文字背后的逻辑是否不同?
Have your friends explain their pictograms. Are their “theories” systematic (explaining all or even several of their pictograms) or is the logic behind each pictogram different?
你的列表可能只包含名词或大部分名词,所以请你的象形文字书写者尝试只使用他们的象形文字(不告诉你这些句子的意思)写一些句子。你能准确地解释他们的象形文字句子吗?缺少什么?这些缺失元素的象形文字会是什么样子?
Your list probably contained only or mostly nouns, so ask your pictographers to try to compose some sentences using only their pictographs (and without telling you the meaning of those sentences). Can you interpret their pictographic sentences accurately? What is missing? What would pictograms of those missing elements look like?
让来自不同语言社区/文化的两个人尝试这个实验。考虑一下你的结果如何反映象形文字在交流中的效率——它们的准确性和表达范围。
Try this experiment with two people from different speech communities/cultures. Consider what your results say about the efficiency of pictograms – their accuracy and range of expression – for communicating.
这是对象形文字普遍性的另一项测试。测试一下你自己和朋友对计算机程序(如 Windows 或 Mac 桌面)中图标含义的理解。分析他们的误解;这是否反映了测试者对计算机“文化”的无知?
Here’s another test of the universality of pictograms. Test yourself and a friend on the meanings of the icons in a computer program (like on the Windows or Mac desktop). Analyze their misinterpretations; do they reflect your test-taker’s ignorance of computer “culture”?
尝试使用韩语“音节方块”写出以下英语句子。英语正字法和音节结构与音节方块的契合程度如何?这告诉您语言的音系和正字法之间的关系是什么?
Try writing the following English sentences using Hangul “syllabic squares.” How well does English orthography – and syllable structure – fit into syllabic squares? What does this tell you about the relation between a language’s phonology and its orthography?
例如:让千朵花绽放。
Example: Let a thousand flowers bloom.
在讨论阿拉伯语时,我们注意到,辅音字母相对容易阅读。相比之下,请注意,只用元音字母表是不可能阅读的。(看看你能否翻译以下句子:a eae o Ei I a eai a ooaa aae ou e iiu, uai eee o, a Ei oae ea iou oe。)想想至少三个原因,为什么只用元音字母表不适用于英语。它是否更适合夏威夷语?(提示:许多原因可以在第 1 章“语言的声音”中找到。)
While discussing Arabic, we noted that it is relatively easy to read consonantal alphabets. In contrast, notice that it is impossible to read an alphabet representing only vowels. (See if you can translate the following sentence: a eae o Ei I a eai a ooaa aae ou e iiu, u a i eee o, a Ei o a e ea iou oe.) Think of at least three reasons why a vowel-only alphabet can’t work for English. Would it work better for a language like Hawai‘ian? (Hint: many of the reasons can be found in Chapter 1, “The sounds of language.”)
将二十世纪下列科技发展对人类生活的影响与文字的影响进行比较:核能、空调、汽车、互联网。它们的影响与文字的影响有何相同和不同之处?
Compare the impact on human life of the following technological developments of the twentieth century with the impact of writing: nuclear power, air conditioning, the automobile, the internet. How are their influences similar to and different from those of writing?
将印刷机对文艺复兴时期欧洲的影响与互联网对当今生活的影响进行比较。谁可以在互联网上发表文章?互联网的消费者是谁?什么会被发表?信息呈现方式是否存在规则或惯例?
Compare the effects of the printing press on Renaissance Europe with the effects of the internet on life today. Who gets to publish on the internet? Who are its consumers? What gets published? Are there rules or conventions for how information may be presented?
练习 12.1 的答案:miquiztli ‘死亡’,mazatl ‘鹿’,calli ‘房子’,atl ‘水’,xochitl ‘花’
Answers to Exercise 12.1: miquiztli ‘death,’ mazatl ‘deer,’ calli ‘house,’ atl ‘water,’ xochitl ‘flower’
正如我们在第 6 章中看到的,母语习得是一个复杂但相对较快的过程,通过这一过程,儿童可以熟练掌握其所在社区的语言。但是,对于我们这些在童年之后才开始学习语言的人来说(例如,通过参加外语课程或移居到新国家),学习非母语的过程要困难得多,而且不太可能完全掌握/流利。成年语言学习者通常需要数年时间才能达到大多数儿童在三岁之前就能轻松掌握其母语的水平,而且很少有成年人在童年结束后能够完全掌握他们试图学习的语言,就像母语一样。如何解释这些差异?为什么这么多人自称是“世界上最差的语言学习者”?成年人学习第二语言的方式与儿童学习第一语言的方式相同吗?如果不是,什么样的教学或学习环境对他们最有效?这些问题是第二语言习得(SLA)领域的核心——广义上定义为与非母语习得相关的学习过程和教学实践的正式研究。
As we saw in Chapter 6, first language acquisition is a complicated but relatively rapid process through which children become competent and proficient users of their communities’ language(s). However, for those of us who start learning a language after childhood – for example, by enrolling in a foreign language course or moving to a new country – the process of learning a non-native language is far more difficult and much less likely to end in complete mastery/fluency. Adult language learners usually take years to reach a level of proficiency that most children attain easily in their first languages before they are three, and few adults achieve complete native-like mastery of languages they have tried to learn after the end of childhood. What can explain these differences? Why do so many people claim the title of “worst language learner in the world” for themselves? Do adults learn second languages in the same way as children learning their first? If not, what kinds of instruction or learning contexts are most effective for them? These questions are central to the field of second language acquisition (SLA) – broadly defined as the formal study of the learning processes and teaching practices related to the acquisition of non-native languages.
尽管几个世纪以来,学者们一直对这类有关语言学习的一般问题感兴趣,但 SLA 作为一个正式定义的研究领域却相对较新。从 20 世纪 40 年代开始,学者们开始提出许多不同的理论来解释人们如何学习非母语。本章第一部分介绍了以下理论:对 SLA 产生了深远影响——从传统的行为主义方法到基于普遍语法的主张,再到最近关于输入和交互作用的假设。我们将研究如何在每个范式中进行研究。接下来,我们将回顾一些影响 SLA 的因素,包括学习者的母语、年龄、性别、动机、工作记忆容量以及他们学习第二语言的背景。这引出了我们对 SLA 中涉及的一些认知过程的讨论,包括注意力、第二语言发展的典型模式以及僵化或稳定化。我们讨论了第二语言研究的方法。最后,我们讨论了第二语言教学法以及当前的研究成果如何应用于教学实践。
Although scholars have been intrigued by these kinds of general questions about language learning for centuries, SLA as a formally defined field of research is relatively young. From the 1940s onwards, scholars began to propose a number of different theories to explain how people learn non-native languages. The first section of this chapter introduces the theories that have been influential in SLA – from traditional behaviorist approaches to universal grammar-based claims to more recent hypotheses about the roles of input and interaction. We examine how research is carried out in each of these paradigms. Next, we review some of the factors that impact SLA, including learners’ first languages, age, gender, motivation, working memory capacity, and the context for their second language learning. This leads us to a discussion of some of the cognitive processes involved in SLA, including attention, typical patterns of second language development, and fossilization or stabilization. We discuss the methodologies of second language research. Finally, we discuss second language pedagogy and how current research findings are being applied to teaching practice.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
第二语言习得到底是什么?广义上讲,第二语言(L2)是指在学习第一语言(L1)之后学习的任何语言,无论学习过多少其他语言。然而,一些语言学家也将 第二语言学习与外语学习。第二语言学习是指学习者所居住社区所使用的非母语的过程(例如,当一个以日语为母语的人来到美国学习英语时),而外语学习是指学习周围社区不所使用的非母语的过程(例如,当一个以英语为母语的人在美国上日语课时)。学习过程可能因环境而异。例如,外语学习者在课堂上听和说外语,但在课堂外很少接触到外语。第二语言学习者在课堂内外都可以接触到该语言。在 SLA 领域,大多数研究人员倾向于使用“第二语言学习”作为涵盖所有非母语学习的总称,我们在本章中也将遵循这种做法。
What exactly is second language acquisition? Broadly speaking, a second language (L2) refers to any language learned after one’s first language (L1), no matter how many others have been learned. However, some linguists also make a distinction between second language learning and foreign language learning. Second language learning refers to the process of acquiring a non-native language that is spoken by the community where the learner is living (for example, when a native speaker of Japanese comes to the US to learn English), while foreign language learning refers to the process of acquiring a non-native language that is not spoken by the surrounding community (for example, when a native speaker of English takes a Japanese class in the US). The learning processes may be different depending on the context. For example, foreign language learners hear and speak the foreign language in the classroom, but have little exposure to it outside the classroom. Second language learners have access to the language both in and out of the classroom. In the field of SLA, most researchers tend to use “second language learning” as an umbrella term covering all non-native language learning, a practice we will follow in this chapter as well.
如第 6 章所述,早期研究人员尝试将行为主义理论和研究应用于理解第一语言习得。行为主义理论也应用于第二语言学习,这种方法在 20 世纪 50 年代和 60 年代具有广泛的影响力。行为主义者认为,第二语言学习者——就像学习母语(或任何其他技能)的孩子一样——通过重复和强化获得适当的语言行为(或“习惯”)。例如,他们认为学习英语作为第二语言 (ESL) 的学生通过在自己的讲话中反复使用复数 -s 形式,可以最有效地学习复数-s形式。因此,在课堂上,教师经常要求学习者在生产练习中重复语言形式(例如,两只猫、三只狗、五头牛、七头猪等),而不必过多关注含义。虽然从未证明任何学生因这种模式练习而死亡,但无限重复短语的练习(有时甚至令人厌烦!)被称为“drill and kill”。
As described in Chapter 6, early researchers attempted to apply behaviorist theories and research to understanding first language acquisition. Behaviorist theories were also applied to second language learning, and the approach was widely influential in the 1950s and 1960s. Behaviorists believed that second language learners – like children learning their native tongues (or any other skill for that matter) – acquired the appropriate language behaviors (or “habits”) through repetition and reinforcement. For example, they believed that learners of English as a second language (ESL) would learn the plural -s form most effectively by producing it repeatedly in their own speech. As such, in classrooms, teachers often required learners to repeat linguistic forms in production drills (e.g. two cats, three dogs, five cows, seven pigs, and so on) without necessarily paying much attention to meaning. Though it has never been proven that any students died from this pattern practice, the exercise of repeating phrases ad infinitum (and, at times, perhaps ad nauseam!) became known as “drill and kill.”
行为主义者还声称,第二语言学习者所犯的错误(比如词序错误)可以归咎于学习者第一语言的 干扰。他们认为,现有的不同于第二语言的第一语言知识或“习惯”可能会干扰第二语言的发展。例如,日语的母语人士(日语中r和1 的发音没有区别)往往会在用英语发r和1 的音时遇到问题,这导致人们拿提供“飞虱”餐点的餐馆开玩笑。学习者的第一语言和第二语言之间的差异被认为是第二语言学习者学习困难的主要来源,人们通过比较语言的音系和语法结构来预测学习困难的地方。这后来正式被称为对比分析假设 (CAH)。
Behaviorists also claimed that errors produced by the second language learner (such as mistakes in word order) could be attributed to interference from the learner’s first language. They argued that existing L1 knowledge or “habits” that differed from those of the L2 could interfere with second language development. For example, a native speaker of Japanese, a language that has no distinction between r and 1 sounds, would tend to have problems pronouncing r and 1 in English – leading, for example, to jokes about restaurants that serve “flied lice” with the meal. Differences between the learner’s L1 and the L2 were thought to be the main source of difficulty for L2 learners, and the phonology and grammatical structures of languages were compared to predict areas of difficulty. This became formally known as the contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH).
虽然通过比较不同语言来预测语法错误具有一定的常识性,而且人们有时也能回忆起支持这一想法的轶事证据,但后来的研究表明,语言差异并不能可靠地预测语言学习难度。研究表明,二语学习者犯的错误很少能追溯到他们的母语。相反,许多错误是由于所有学习者共同的发展过程造成的,无论其母语背景如何。仅仅因为两种语言的语法结构不同,并不一定意味着第二语言学习者会觉得它们很难。然而,有趣的是,对比分析继续被使用并且有用的一个领域是预测发音问题。我们可以很容易地分辨出一个人的口音听起来不像母语,许多人可以对第一语言做出合理的猜测。例如,以西班牙语为母语的人有时会在英语中带有辅音群的单词开头添加一个额外的元音,如eschool和estudy,而以法语为母语的人可能会用z代替th音,如zis school。
While a comparison of languages to predict grammatical errors has some commonsense appeal and people can sometimes recall anecdotal evidence in favor of the idea, later research has shown that language differences do not reliably predict language learning difficulty. Studies have indicated that very few of the errors produced by L2 learners can be traced to their L1. Instead, many errors are due to developmental processes common to all learners regardless of L1 background. Just because grammatical structures in two languages are different, this does not necessarily mean that the second language learner will find them difficult. Interestingly, though, one area where contrastive analysis continues to be used and useful is in predicting pronunciation problems. We can easily tell when a person’s accent does not sound native-like, and many people can make a reasonable guess at the first language. For example, native Spanish speakers are sometimes known to add an extra vowel onto the beginning of words with consonant clusters in English, as in eschool and estudy, while native speakers of French might substitute a z for a th sound as in zis school.
20 世纪 70 年代,诺姆·乔姆斯基关于生成语法的思想在理论语言学领域产生了影响,行为主义教学方法背后的大部分理论基础因此受到质疑。当时,人们普遍放弃了行为主义理论,转而采用关注语言习得过程中涉及的各种学习者内部机制的方法,这一转变导致了新的第二语言习得理论的出现,我们将在以下章节中讨论这些理论。
During the 1970s, much of the rationale behind behaviorist teaching methods was called into question following the impact of Noam Chomsky’s ideas about generative grammar in the field of theoretical linguistics. At this time, there was a general move away from behaviorist theories and toward approaches that focused on the various learner-internal mechanisms involved in language acquisition – a move that led to the emergence of new theories of second language acquisition, which will be discussed in the sections below.
从 20 世纪 70 年代开始,另一种关于 L2 学习的观点开始流行起来。研究人员不再将语言视为通过强化习得的一系列机械习惯,而是开始将语言学习视为内部和外部因素之间更为复杂的相互作用。这种方法的一个例子可以在 Stephen Krashen 的著作中找到,他认为 L2 学习者需要接触一种特殊的输入才能学习目标语言。
Beginning in the 1970s, another view of L2 learning became popular. Rather than treating language as a series of mechanical habits that are learned through reinforcement, researchers began to view language learning as a more complex interaction of internal and external factors. One example of this approach can be found in the work of Stephen Krashen, who believed that L2 learners needed to be exposed to a special kind of input in order to learn the target language.
克拉申认识到可理解性输入对语言学习的重要性,即以目标语言输入的语言,在特定的使用环境中是可以理解的,但比学习者当前的能力水平略高一些。可理解性输入通常缩写为“i+1”,其中“i”指学习者的当前水平,“+1”表示略高一些的输入。通过接触这种输入,人们认为 L2 习得会自动进步,并且方式与 L1 习得相同 — — 但前提是学习者的情感过滤器(或情绪障碍)足够低。换句话说,如果学习者对目标语言、说话者或学习环境感到焦虑或怀有负面情绪,可理解性输入就会被“过滤掉”。
Krashen recognized the importance to language learning of comprehensible input, that is, input in the target language that is understandable in a particular context of use but slightly more advanced than the learner’s current level of ability. Comprehensible input is often abbreviated as “i+1,” where “i” refers to the learner’s current level and “+1” denotes the slightly more advanced input. Through exposure to this input, L2 acquisition was believed to progress automatically and in the same fashion as L1 acquisition – but only if the learner’s affective filter (or emotional barrier) was sufficiently low. In other words, if the learner was anxious or harbored negative emotions toward the target language, its speakers, or the learning context, comprehensible input could be “filtered out.”
克拉申还认为,语言习得有一个自然的顺序;换句话说,他声称所有学习者,无论其第一语言是什么,都会按照相同的顺序经历第二语言发展的相同阶段。这一“自然顺序假说”基于一系列被称为词素顺序研究的研究(见方框 13.1)。克拉申的假说和词素顺序研究共同向教师和研究人员表明,只要第二语言学习者接触到正确的输入,并有正确的态度,目标语言就会按照特定的预定顺序自然出现。
Krashen also argued that there is a natural order of acquisition; in other words, he claimed that all learners, regardless of their L1, progress through the same stages of second language development and in the same order. This “natural order hypothesis” was based on a series of studies known as the morpheme order studies (see Box 13.1). Together, Krashen’s hypotheses and the morpheme order studies suggested to teachers and researchers that if second language learners were simply exposed to the right kind of input and had the right attitude, the target language would emerge naturally in a particular predetermined order.
第二语言研究人员 Dulay 和 Burt 在研究了儿童如何习得母语之后,试图确定第二语言学习者学习英语是否有相似的习得顺序。例如,在 1974 年的研究中,他们调查了来自两个不同母语背景(中文和西班牙文)的儿童是否以相似的顺序习得了 11 种不同的英语词素。 (这些词素包括代词格、冠词、系词、现在进行时 - ing、复数形式、助动词、过去规则和不规则形式、长复数、所有格和第三人称单数 - s。)他们使用双语句法测量来收集数据,通过向儿童展示如上图所示的图片并提出一系列问题(例如,这个胖子在做什么?),从而获取儿童自然的 L2 语音样本。这些问题的构建需要某些词素;例如,词素 - ing是回答前一个问题的必需词素,因为“胖子在吃”这样的句子是不合语法的。
Following research on how children acquire their native languages, second language researchers Dulay and Burt sought to determine whether there was a similar order of acquisition for second language learners of English. In their 1974 study, for example, they investigated whether children from two different first language backgrounds (Chinese and Spanish) acquired eleven different English morphemes in a similar order. (The morphemes were pronoun case, articles, the copula, the present progressive -ing, plural forms, auxiliary verbs, past regular and irregular forms, long plurals, possessives, and the third-person singular -s.) They used the Bilingual Syntax Measure to gather the data, eliciting samples of children’s natural L2 speech by showing them pictures like the one above and asking a series of questions (e.g. What is the fat man doing?). The questions were constructed to require certain morphemes; for example, the morpheme -ing would be obligatory to answer the previous question since a sentence such as The fat man is eat is ungrammatical.
Dulay 和 Burt 推断,词素使用的准确性与词素习得的早晚之间存在对应关系。因此,他们根据每个孩子在必需语境中是否正确使用每个词素来计算每个孩子的准确度得分。然后,他们根据词素的准确度得分对词素进行排序,并将这些排序与词素习得的顺序等同起来。通过这一程序,Dulay 和 Burt 发现,两组学习英语的孩子的词素习得顺序相似。由于中文和西班牙语是互不相关的第一语言,他们认为,解释相似习得顺序的唯一方法是通过通用处理机制。换句话说,无论母语背景如何,孩子们都会因为天生的语言学习过程而以相同的顺序习得词素。
Dulay and Burt reasoned that there was a correspondence between how accurately a morpheme was used and how early it was acquired. Thus, they calculated each child’s accuracy score for each morpheme based on whether it was used correctly in obligatory contexts. Then they ranked the morphemes by their accuracy scores and equated these rankings with the order in which the morphemes were acquired. Using this procedure, Dulay and Burt found similar orders of morpheme acquisition for both groups of children learning English. Since Chinese and Spanish are unrelated first languages, they argued that the only way to explain the similar acquisition orders was through universal processing mechanisms. In other words, regardless of their L1 background, children would acquire the morphemes in the same sequence because of innate language learning processes.
不幸的是,这种词素顺序研究涉及几个方法论问题。例如,准确度排名实际上可能并不反映词素学习的顺序。此外,第二语言的产生不仅仅涉及在强制性语境中使用正确的形式;它还涉及不使用不适当的语境中的形式。也就是说,也有可能产生语法正确但语用奇怪的话语。此外,这项研究的数据库有限,仅由来自两个 L1 背景的学习者组成,这削弱了关于这些过程普遍性的主张。最后,准确度顺序的相似性可能是其他非生物学因素的结果。例如,考虑到这些孩子都在接受 ESL 教学,结果可能受到教学法或孩子们使用的教科书的影响。然而,在语言习得普遍阶段这一宝贵概念的基础上,对发展序列的研究不断发展,正如我们将在本章后面讨论的问题形成阶段的例子中看到的那样。
Unfortunately, such morpheme order studies involved several methodological problems. For example, accuracy rankings may not in fact reflect the order in which morphemes are learned. Also, second language production involves more than using correct forms in obligatory contexts; it involves not using forms in inappropriate contexts as well. That is, it is also possible to produce utterances that are grammatically correct but pragmatically odd. Furthermore, the study’s limited database, consisting of learners from only two L1 backgrounds, undermines claims about the universality of these processes. Finally, the similarities found in accuracy orders may have been the result of other nonbiological factors. For example, given that the children were all receiving ESL instruction, the results might have been influenced by the pedagogy or by the textbooks the children were using. However, building on the valuable notion of universal stages in language acquisition, research on developmental sequences has continued to evolve, as we will see in the example of question-formation stages discussed later in this chapter.
尽管克拉申的假设在理论和方法论上都受到批评,但他的模型却很有影响力。例如,研究人员解决的一个基本问题是,很难明确说明某个学习者的当前水平(“i”)和相应的可理解输入水平(“i+1”)。然而,基于克拉申模型的后续研究能够更具体地根据明确的、经验可验证的发展顺序确定学习者在某些语法形式方面的水平。研究人员还认识到,对于 L2 学习者来说,收到有关有问题的话语的反馈并让他们的注意力集中在语言形式上很有价值。这些过程在互动假设中发挥着核心作用,我们接下来将讨论这一观点。
Although Krashen’s hypotheses were subject to criticisms on both theoretical and methodological grounds, his model was influential. One basic problem addressed by researchers, for example, was the difficulty of spelling out the current level (“i”) and corresponding level of comprehensible input (“i+1”) for a particular learner. However, subsequent work building on Krashen’s model was able to locate learners’ levels more specifically with respect to certain grammatical forms in clear-cut, empirically verifiable developmental sequences. Researchers also recognized the value to L2 learners of receiving feedback on problematic utterances and having their attention drawn to linguistic form. Such processes play central roles in the interaction hypothesis, and it is to this idea that we turn next.
互动假设源自Michael Long 和 Susan Gass 认为,当学习者尝试与其他第二语言使用者交流,遇到困难,并与对话者进一步互动以解决问题时,第二语言的发展就会得到促进。作为这一过程的一部分,学习者经常需要寻求帮助,以便理解他们收到的输入(例如,通过使用澄清请求,例如“你能再说一遍吗?”)。例如,在下面的例子 (1)中,学习者(非母语人士,或 NNS)无法理解母语人士 (NS) 的话语。通过使用澄清请求,她能够获得更易于理解的输入,也许更适合她的语言学习需求。
The interaction hypothesis, stemming from the work of Michael Long and Susan Gass, suggests that second language development can be facilitated when learners attempt to communicate with other speakers in the L2, experience difficulties, and engage in further interaction with their interlocutors to resolve their problems. As part of this process, learners often need to seek help in order to comprehend the input they receive (e.g. by using clarification requests such as “Could you say that again?”). For instance, in example (1) below, the learner (the non-native speaker, or NNS) fails to understand the native speaker’s (NS) utterance. By using a clarification request, she is able to obtain input that is more comprehensible and perhaps better suited to her language learning needs.
| (1) |
(摘自 Mackey 和 Philp 1998:339)
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在互动过程中,学习者还需要产生他人可理解的输出。在示例 (2)中,NNS 产生了她的伙伴无法理解的话语。在这种情况下,她必须利用自己的语言知识(例如英语音位学或句法)来使自己被理解;这个过程称为产生修改后的输出。
During interaction, learners also need to produce output that is comprehensible to others. In example (2), the NNS produces an utterance that is incomprehensible to her partner. In this case, she must draw upon her linguistic knowledge (of English phonology or syntax, for example) to make herself understood; this process is known as producing modified output.
| (2) |
(摘自 Pica 1994:514)
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通过获取可理解的输入和产生经过修改的输出,互动被认为有助于让学习者注意到他们的中介语(即他们目前对目标语言的了解)和目标语言的母语形式之间存在的问题差异。当学习者收到关于他们的 L2 产出的反馈(例如通过澄清请求)时,他们的注意力就会被吸引到“差距”上,也就是他们语言知识中需要改进的领域。例如,在示例(3)中,学生在主谓结构上犯了一个错误协议,老师提供以改写的形式在后续话语中提供纠正反馈。改写是一种更贴近目标的方式,可以表达学习者想要表达的意思,改变话语的形式但不改变其内容。
Through processes such as obtaining comprehensible input and producing modified output, interaction is believed to help draw learners’ attention to problematic differences between their interlanguage (i.e. their current knowledge of the target language) and the native form of the target language. When learners receive feedback on their L2 production (e.g. through clarification requests), their attention can be drawn to “gaps” – that is, to areas in their linguistic knowledge that need improvement. For instance, in example (3) the student makes an error in subject–verb agreement, and the teacher provides corrective feedback in the form of a recast in her subsequent utterance. A recast is a more targetlike way of expressing what is perceived to be a learner’s intended meaning, changing the form but not the content of the utterance.
| (3) |
(摘自 Nicholas、Lightbown 和 Spada 2001:721)
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总之,互动论者认为互动提供了学习的机会,尽管互动并不是推动学习的唯一力量。与此相关的问题是互动本身是否是学习,这是社会文化主义者的主张,如下所述。在互动论框架内工作的研究人员目前正在对互动驱动的 L2 学习进行定性、定量和描述性研究。实验研究的一个例子出现在方框 13.2中。
In summary, then, interactionists claim that interaction provides opportunities for learning, although interaction is not the only force driving learning. Related to this is the question of whether interaction itself is learning, which is the claim made by socioculturalists, discussed below. Researchers working within the interactionist framework are currently carrying out qualitative, quantitative, and descriptive research on interaction-driven L2 learning. An example of an experimental study appears in Box 13.2.
一个例子第一个研究互动(尤其是重述)对第二语言发展影响的实证研究是 Mackey 和 Philp ( 1998 )。在这项研究中,研究人员试图确定在对话互动过程中接受重述的英语作为第二语言的学习者是否比没有接受重述的学习者产生更多高级问题形式。
One example of an empirical study investigating the effects of interaction (and, in particular, recasts) on second language development is Mackey and Philp (1998). In this study, the researchers sought to determine whether learners of English as a second language who received recasts during conversational interaction produced more advanced question forms than those who did not receive recasts.
首先,根据独立的预测试熟练程度测量,将来自澳大利亚初级和中低级班的 35 名 ESL 学习者分为两个熟练程度组(高和低)。然后,学习者被随机分配到互动组、重述组或对照组。互动组与英语母语人士一起参与基于任务的活动,但没有重述他们的语言错误。(在上文中作为此类活动示例的找不同任务中,学习者和母语人士获得了同一场景的略有不同的图片,并且必须在不看对方图片的情况下口头比较图片内容。)重述组参与相同的活动,但他们与互动组的不同之处在于他们确实重述了他们的错误。而对照组只完成了前测和后测。
Thirty-five ESL learners from beginning and lower-intermediate classes in Australia were first divided into two proficiency groups (high and low) based on an independent pre-test measure of proficiency. The learners were then randomly assigned to either an Interactor group, Recast group, or Control group. The Interactor group participated in task-based activities with a native speaker of English, but did not receive recasts on their linguistic errors. (In the spot-the-differences task, shown above as an example of one such activity, the learner and native speaker were given slightly different pictures of the same scene and had to compare the contents of their pictures verbally without looking at the other’s picture.) The recast group participated in the same activities, but they differed from the Interactor group in that they did receive recasts on their errors. The Control group, meanwhile, only completed the pre- and post-tests.
研究人员通过观察从前测到后测中问题形式产生的变化来评估重铸的影响。(有关问题发展顺序的更多信息,请参阅方框 13.8。)他们发现,参与重铸对话互动的学习者在问题形式的发展方面表现出更大的增长,其中高水平学习者的增幅最大。因此,这项研究为互动假设及其重铸可以促进第二语言发展的说法提供了支持。
The researchers assessed the impact of the recasts by looking at changes in the production of question forms from the pre-test to the post-test. (See Box 13.8 for more information on the developmental sequence for questions.) They found that the learners who participated in conversational interaction with recasts showed a greater increase in the development of question forms, with higher-level learners showing the greatest increase. The study thus provides support for the interaction hypothesis and its claims that recasts can facilitate second language development.
然而,应该指出的是,这项研究只涉及了学习构成中很小的一个方面,即 ESL 中特定问题形式的发展。虽然有时需要像这样狭义地定义发展以检验理论,但它留下了有关其他语言形式的悬而未决的问题。
It should be noted, however, that this study addressed only a very small aspect of what constitutes learning, the development of a selected type of question forms in ESL. While narrowly defining development like this is sometimes necessary to test theory, it leaves open questions about other linguistic forms.
互动论者关注的是互动所促进的认知机制(如注意力),而社会文化论者,顾名思义,关注的是互动与语言学习的人际和社会方面之间的关系。社会文化理论认为,所有认知发展(包括语言)都源于个体之间的互动。在第二语言学习的社会文化研究中,一种受到研究关注的互动类型是技能较差的 L2 学习者与更专业的“其他人”——老师、导师或更熟练的同学——之间的互动。专家可以为学习者提供一种支架,即共同构建话语。也就是说,通过简化任务、控制学习者的挫败感、建模解决方案并将学习者的注意力吸引到任务的重要特征上,专家可以为学习者提供发展和练习特定语言技能的机会,使学习者能够与他人合作完成比独自完成的更多任务。
Whereas interactionists focus on the cognitive mechanisms (such as attention) that are facilitated by interaction, socioculturalists, as their name implies, focus on the relationship between interpersonal and social aspects of interaction and language learning. Sociocultural theory posits that all cognitive development (including language) stems from interactions between individuals. One type of interaction that has received research attention in sociocultural studies of second language learning is the interaction between a less skilled L2 learner and a more expert “other” – a teacher, tutor, or more proficient fellow learner. The expert can provide the learner with a form of scaffolding, the co-construction of an utterance. That is, by simplifying the task, controlling the learner’s frustration, modeling solutions, and bringing the learner’s attention to important features of the task, the expert can provide the learner with the opportunity to develop and practice a particular linguistic skill, enabling the learner to accomplish more in collaboration with others than she could by herself.
社会文化研究通常包括对交流参与者的社会和语言背景进行仔细而详细的分析——例如,学习者之间的关系以及他们对手头任务的理解。框 13.3中给出了此类研究的一个例子。
Sociocultural research often includes careful and detailed analysis of the social and linguistic context of the participants in a communicative exchange – for example, the relationship between the learners and their understanding of the task at hand. An example of this sort of study appears in Box 13.3.
在一项基于社会文化主义语言学习方法的有趣研究中,Swain 和 Lapkin ( 1998 ) 研究了两名 8 年级法语浸入式学生 Kim 和 Rick 的语言,当时他们正在合作进行课堂活动。学生的任务是根据一系列图片口头构建一个故事,然后将故事写下来。在执行任务之前,学习者接受了形容词-名词的预测试法语中的一致性,并在任务完成一周后对他们进行后测。
In an interesting study based on the socioculturalist approach to language learning, Swain and Lapkin (1998) studied the language of two grade 8 French immersion students, Kim and Rick, as they worked collaboratively on a classroom activity. The students’ task was to construct a story orally from a sequence of pictures and then put the story into writing. Before the task, the learners were given a pre-test on adjective–noun agreement in French, and one week after the task, they were given a post-test.
斯韦恩和拉普金认为,互动不仅提供了学习的机会(这是互动论者的普遍主张),而且互动本身就是学习。为了找到学习的证据,斯韦恩和拉普金对这两名学生的讲话进行了仔细的分析。为此,他们专注于“与语言相关的事件”,即学生谈论他们所使用的语言、质疑彼此和自己的语言使用情况或提供纠正的情况。例如,在下面的例子中,金和里克都不确定闹钟的法语翻译是否正确。然而,这两位学习者能够一起“构建一个脚手架”,即将他们的集体知识拼凑在一起以得出正确答案。
Arguing that interaction not only provides opportunities for learning (which is the general claim made by interactionists), but that interaction itself is learning, Swain and Lapkin conducted a close analysis of the speech of these two students in order to find evidence of learning. To this end, they focused on “language-related episodes,” or instances where the students talked about the language they were producing, questioned each other’s and their own language use, or provided corrections. For instance, in the example below, neither Kim nor Rick is confident of the correct French translation of alarm clock. However, together, the two learners are able to “construct a scaffold,” that is, to piece together their collective knowledge to arrive at the correct answer.
KIM: Du réveille-matin qui sonne?听起来不错吗?闹钟响了?听起来还好吗?瑞克:或者……杰奎琳因为……杜雷维耶——……是的,qui sonne。或者说……杰奎琳(他们故事中的女孩)因为闹钟响而起床——……是的,闹钟响了。金:好的。或者您可以说du réveille-matin或du sonnement du réveille-matin。好的。或者你可以说闹钟或闹钟铃声。里克:不,réveille-matin qui sonne。不,闹钟响了。
KIM: Du réveille-matin qui sonne? Does that sound OK?Of the alarm clock that rings? Does that sound OK?RICK: Or what about… Jacqueline se lève à cause du … du réveille-… yeah, qui sonne.Or what about… Jacqueline [the girl in their story] gets up because of the … of the alarm-… yeah, that rings.KIM: OK. Or you can say du réveille-matin or du sonnement du réveille-matin.OK. Or you can say of the alarm clock or of the ring of the alarm clock.RICK: No, réveille-matin qui sonne.No, alarm clock that rings.
通过这种仔细的考察,斯韦恩和拉普金认为,学习者在对话过程中共同构建了知识。后测分数进一步表明,这些知识得到了保留。因此,这项研究为社会文化主义者的主张提供了证据,即涉及某种支架或共同构建的互动可以成为语言发展的源泉。
Through this kind of close examination, Swain and Lapkin argue that the learners jointly constructed knowledge during their dialogue. Post-test scores further indicate that the knowledge was retained. This study thus provides evidence for socioculturalist claims that interaction involving some kind of scaffolding or co-construction can be a source of linguistic development.
一些社会文化研究的重点是学习者,而不是学习过程和结果,有时会受到批评,认为这无助于检验有关语言发展的说法。在 Swain 和 Lapkin 的研究中,只研究了两名学习者,但所提出的主张是适当谨慎的,学习联系也很明确。
The focus of some sociocultural research on the learner, as opposed to learning processes and outcomes, has sometimes been criticized for not being helpful in testing claims about linguistic development. In Swain and Lapkin’s research, only two learners were studied, but the claims made were appropriately cautious, and the learning connections were clear.
与互动主义和社会文化主义的语言习得方法不同,在普遍语法框架内工作的研究人员专注于与生俱来的语言知识,即普遍语法 (UG),据信它指导了所有语言学习。这种方法被广泛称为本土主义,源自诺姆·乔姆斯基的作品。UG SLA 研究人员解决的问题包括:“学习者开始 SLA 过程时所掌握的语言知识的性质是什么?”和“学习者在学习其他语言时,他们的第一语言语法和 UG 在多大程度上对他们有用?”
In contrast to both the interactionist and socioculturalist approaches to language acquisition, researchers working within a Universal Grammar framework have focused on the innate linguistic knowledge, or Universal Grammar (UG), believed to guide all language learning. This approach is broadly known as nativism and is derived from the work of Noam Chomsky. UG SLA researchers address questions such as, “What is the nature of the linguistic knowledge with which learners begin the SLA process?” and “To what extent are learners’ first language grammars and UG available to them as they learn additional languages?”
作为如第 6 章所述,本土主义者使用普遍语法来帮助解释他们所谓的母语习得的“逻辑问题”。他们指出,儿童听到的输入充满了错误的开始、犹豫和其他不流畅之处,并不包含儿童会说出的所有句子。本土主义者认为,儿童不可能从这种“贫乏的”输入中推断出他们在短短几年内如此迅速和毫不费力地获得的复杂语言知识。他们还声称,儿童无法从父母提供的有限(且不一致)的指导中学到很多语言知识。因此,本土主义者认为,儿童语言习得的唯一合理解释是先天的语言天赋引导着这一过程,即大脑中的语言习得装置 (LAD)。
As discussed in Chapter 6, nativists use Universal Grammar to help explain what they call the “logical problem” of first language acquisition. They point out that the input that children hear is full of false starts, hesitancies, and other dysfluencies, and that it does not contain all the sentences that children come to produce. Nativists argue that it is not possible for children to deduce from this “impoverished” input the complex linguistic knowledge that they so quickly and effortlessly acquire in just a few years. Nor, they claim, can children learn much of their linguistic knowledge from the limited (and inconsistent) instruction that parents offer. Hence, nativists posit that the only logical explanation for children’s language acquisition is an innate language endowment guiding the process, a language acquisition device (LAD) in the brain.
一些本土主义者声称第二语言习得也存在逻辑问题。更具体地说,他们认为第二语言学习者最终获得的复杂语言知识不能简单地从输入或教学中获取,因此必须从普遍语法中获取。其他本土主义者指出,许多学习者(尤其是成年 L2 学习者)并没有获得非常复杂水平的 L2 知识。他们声称在一定年龄之后不再具有普遍语法。这些研究人员认为,一旦学习者度过了语言习得的关键(或敏感)时期(通常在青春期左右),语言习得机制就会“萎缩”,其包含的知识(即普遍语法)不再直接可用于帮助指导第二语言学习过程。相反,学习者必须依靠记忆等一般的学习机制来取得他们所能取得的进步。为了研究二语学习者是否能够掌握普遍语法,以及到什么年龄才能够掌握,本土学者经常依靠可接受性(或语法性)判断测试。在这些测试中,二语学习者被要求评估二语中各种句子的可接受性(见下文 方框 13.4 )。
Some nativists claim that a logical problem exists for second language acquisition as well. More specifically, they maintain that the complex linguistic knowledge that second language learners eventually attain cannot simply be gleaned from the input or from instruction and therefore must be obtained from universal grammar. Other nativists point out that many learners (especially adult L2 learners) do not obtain a very complex level of L2 knowledge. Their claim is that UG is no longer available after a certain age. Such researchers argue that once a learner has passed a critical (or sensitive) period for language acquisition (typically placed around the age of puberty), the language acquisition device “atrophies” and the knowledge it contains (i.e. UG) is no longer directly available to help guide the second language learning process. Instead, learners must rely on general learning mechanisms such as memorization to make what progress they can. To investigate whether, and until what age, universal grammar may be available to L2 learners, nativists have often relied on acceptability (or grammaticality) judgment tests. In these tests, L2 learners are asked to evaluate the acceptability of various sentences in the L2 (see Box 13.4 below).
在一项依赖于可接受性判断测试的研究中,Schachter ( 1989 ) 对三组英语学习者(印尼语、汉语和韩语的母语人士)测试了语法中被称为“邻接性”的一个方面,它指的是 wh-word 与其指称词之间的距离。之所以选择这三组语言,是因为它们在邻接性方面的表现非常不同。Schachter 假设,如果所有三组学习者都表现相似,正确地指出违反邻接性的英语句子是不合语法的,那么就可以说他们仍然能够使用普遍语法。换句话说,既然他们无法从他们的母语中获得关于邻接性的知识(因为他们的母语在这一规则方面与英语不同),那么一些天生的语言知识就会指导他们的可接受性判断。
In a study relying on acceptability judgment tests, Schachter (1989) tested three groups of English language learners (native speakers of Indonesian, Chinese, and Korean) on an aspect of grammar known as subjacency, which refers to how far a wh-word can be separated from its referent. These languages were chosen because they behave very differently with respect to subjacency. Schachter hypothesized that if all three groups of learners behaved similarly by correctly indicating that English sentences that violated subjacency were ungrammatical, it could be argued that they still had access to Universal Grammar. In other words, since they would not be able to derive knowledge of subjacency from their native languages (as their native languages differed from English with respect to this rule), some innate linguistic knowledge would have to be guiding their acceptability judgments.
为了检验这一假设,Schachter 为她的学习者提供了一个可接受性判断测试,如下面的示例所示,其中要求学习者指出他们认为给定的句子或问题的可接受程度。在 Schachter 的研究中,一半的测试项目涉及邻接性,而另一半是干扰项,这意味着它们不涉及邻接性,但长度和/或复杂性相似。后一种类型的测试是为了确定学习者是否可以处理语法复杂的句子。
To test this hypothesis, Schachter gave her learners an acceptability judgment test like the one below in the example, in which learners were asked to indicate how acceptable they thought the given sentences or questions were. In Schachter’s study, half of the test items dealt with subjacency, while the other half were distractors, meaning that they did not deal with subjacency but were of similar length and/or complexity. This latter type was included to determine whether the learners could handle grammatically complex sentences.
1 = 完全不合语法;5 = 完全合语法
1 = completely ungrammatical; 5 = completely grammatical
Schachter 发现,大多数参与者都正确地回答了干扰项(即他们正确地指出了哪些是符合语法的,哪些不是),但他们没有正确地拒绝违反邻接性。换句话说,他们把那些实际上不符合语法的项标记为可接受,因为它们违反了邻接性。根据这些结果,她得出结论,像她研究中的那些晚期第二语言学习者,没有接触过普遍语法。后来的研究人员对一些可接受性判断测试的用途及其背后的假设表示了保留意见;然而,研究高级语言学习者在第二语言习得过程中是否能够接触到先天的语言知识一直是 SLA 的一个重要研究方向。
Schachter found that most of the participants got the distractor items right (that is, they correctly indicated which ones were grammatical and which ones were not), but they did not properly reject the subjacency violations. In other words, they marked items acceptable even when they were actually ungrammatical because they violated subjacency. Based on these results, she concluded that late second language learners, like those in her study, did not have access to Universal Grammar. Subsequent researchers have expressed reservations about some uses of acceptability judgment tests and the assumptions underlying them; however, the investigation of whether advanced language learners have access to innate linguistic knowledge in the second language acquisition process has been an important line of research in SLA.
尽管普遍语法被认为由指导语言习得过程的分类语言规则组成,但基于频率的方法的支持者认为,这种天生的才能可能更像是语言学习者在其环境中感知到的动作、事件和对象(语言和非语言)的频率和规律模式自下而上的自然形成。换句话说,L1 和 L2 学习者会体验并无意识地追踪大量的语言信息,包括特定的声音是否一起出现、特定单词的顺序,甚至语言的语篇特征。例如,学习如何使用英语冠词(即a、the、an)可能涉及通过简单的联想过程学习它们在何处经常出现(例如在名词和形容词之前)以及它们在何处不经常出现或根本不出现(例如在名词之后)。因此,学习者根据他们对所听到的语言中的频率和模式的无意识敏感性推断出“the cat ”是符合语法的,而“cat the”则极为不常见,或者“ I saw the cat”比“I saw cat”更为规范。
Whereas Universal Grammar is claimed to consist of categorical linguistic rules that guide the language acquisition process, proponents of frequency-based approaches argue that this innate endowment may be more like an emergent, bottom-up result of frequencies and regular patterns of actions, events, and objects (both linguistic and nonlinguistic) that language learners perceive in their environment. In other words, L1 and L2 learners experience and unconsciously keep track of a vast array of linguistic information, including whether or not particular sounds occur together, the orderings of particular words, and even discourse characteristics of language. Learning how to use articles in English (i.e. a, the, an), for instance, may involve learning through simple associative processes where they occur frequently (e.g. before nouns and adjectives) and where they occur infrequently or not at all (e.g. after nouns). Thus, the knowledge that the cat is grammatical while cat the is highly unusual, or that I saw the cat is more well-formed than I saw cat, is something that learners deduce based on their mostly unconscious sensitivity to frequencies and patterns in the language they hear.
研究人员声称,一系列认知系统(如工作记忆和知觉表征)以及注意力资源都参与形成此类关联并将规律应用于第一和第二语言习得。然而,对输入频率和模式的无意识分析可能不是导致第二语言学习的唯一机制。例如,成人语言学习通常比儿童语言习得更有意识和更有针对性,对于许多成人语言学习者来说,输入仅限于语言课堂上使用的材料。
Researchers claim that a range of cognitive systems, such as working memory and perceptual representations, as well as attentional resources, are involved in forming such associations and applying regularities to first and second language acquisition. However, unconscious analysis of frequencies and patterns in input may not be the only mechanism leading to second language learning. For example, adult language learning is typically more conscious and directed than child language acquisition, and for many adult language learners, input is limited to materials used in the language classroom.
值得注意的是,关于频率在第二语言学习中的作用的问题早在多年前就被提出。正如上文所述,从 20 世纪 50 年代开始,一些行为主义者认为语言学习就是(明确学习的)模式的习得。随着行为主义的衰落,这种论证思路不再被采纳;然而,基于频率的方法目前正在复兴,SLA 目前正在解决的有关频率作用的问题研究人员和心理语言学家。这类工作正在变得流行,尽管Nick Ellis 的研究认为,基于频率的方法是有意义的,因为与 UG 不同,它们与其他第一和第二语言习得方法相结合,并与认知神经科学对第二语言学习者大脑中可测量过程的研究相一致。创新技术,如功能性磁共振功能磁共振成像(fMRI)开始为研究人员提供手段研究大脑中语言的习得和处理。尽管这些神经生物学功能很复杂,目前还不甚了解,但大脑成像研究的最新进展,加上复杂的计算机建模策略,可能会在未来使我们对 SLA 过程的理解取得重大进展。框 13.5中描述了基于频率的研究示例。
It is interesting to note that questions about the role of frequency in second language learning were raised many years ago. Beginning in the 1950s, as discussed above, some behaviorists argued that language learning was the (explicitly learned) acquisition of patterns. With the decline of behaviorism, this line of argument was not pursued; however, frequency-based approaches are enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment, with questions about the role of frequency being currently addressed by SLA researchers and psycholinguists. Such work is becoming popularized though the research of Nick Ellis, who has argued that frequency-based approaches make sense because, unlike UG, they engage with other approaches to first and second language acquisition and are consistent with cognitive neuroscience research into the measurable processes going on in the brains of second language learners. Innovative technology, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), is beginning to provide investigators with the means of examining the acquisition and processing of language in the brain. Although these neurobiological functions are complex and little understood at present, the recent advances in brain imaging research, together with sophisticated computer modeling strategies, are likely to lead to significant advances in our understanding of SLA processes in the future. An example of a frequency-based study is described in Box 13.5.
与本土主义研究人员不同,联结主义研究人员强调,尽管可以将语言行为描述为规则式的,但这并不意味着语言行为受规则支配。他们认为,简单的联想学习机制的概括可以产生新的语言。计算建模让研究人员能够评估通过提取概率模式来获得语言规律的效果。由于基于频率的模型是受神经启发、动态和数据驱动的,因此一些研究人员认为,从生物学角度来看,它们比本土主义的语言习得机制更合理。
In contrast to nativist researchers, connectionist researchers emphasize that although it is possible to describe language behavior as rule-like, this does not mean that it is governed by rules. They argue that generalizations from simple associative learning mechanisms can lead to novel language. Computational modeling lets researchers assess how well linguistic regularities can be acquired through the extraction of probabilistic patterns. Since frequency-based models are neurally inspired, dynamic, and data-driven, some researchers have argued that they are biologically more plausible than the language acquisition device of nativist accounts.
为了回答是否有必要假设规则或是否有可能从联想过程的角度理解形态学的学习问题,Ellis 和 Schmidt ( 1997 ) 进行了一项 SLA 实验室研究,他们通过让成年人和计算联想学习系统学习一种人工语言来控制先前知识和语言输入的接触频率。参与者首先学习了 20 个新词汇,然后接触它们的复数形式。因为之前的研究使用不同的频率效应来论证规则和不规则过去时形态形式的学习方式不同(即分别通过规则生成和联想记忆),所以一半的项目是规则的,而另一半具有独特的(不规则的)复数词缀。在每一组中,一半的复数出现的频率是其他的五倍。
To address the question of whether it is necessary to postulate rules or whether it is possible to understand the learning of morphology in terms of associative processes, Ellis and Schmidt (1997) carried out a laboratory study of SLA in which they controlled for prior knowledge and frequency of exposure to linguistic input by having both adult humans and a computational associative learning system acquire an artificial language. The participants first learned twenty new lexical items and were then exposed to their plural forms. Because prior research had used differing frequency effects to argue that regular and irregular past-tense morphological forms are learned differently (i.e. by rule generation and associative memory, respectively), half of the items were regular, while the other half had unique (irregular) plural affixes. In each of these groups, half of the plurals were presented five times more frequently than the others.
埃利斯和施密特测量了准确度和反应时间,发现规则复数和高频词具有优势。他们还发现,频率效应对不规则词的影响更大,尤其是在学习的中期阶段。然而,他们的结果与之前的研究不同,在习得的早期阶段,频率效应不仅对规则词有影响,对不规则词也有影响。随着学习者的学习越来越多,这些影响的规模会减小,而频率效应对不规则词的影响则减小得更慢。根据埃利斯和施密特的说法,这些发现表明,练习的幂律(即随着练习的增加,进步的程度会降低)适用于形态句法的习得。结合这一发现,他们的联结主义模型在接触与系统相同的材料时,可以相当准确地模拟人类的习得过程,他们得出结论,实际上没有必要假设基本规则。他们声称,所有效果都可以解释为简单联想学习的自然结果,而不是存在一种混合学习系统,其中某些形式由规则生成,而其他形式则通过联想记忆学习。当然,这些结论受到 UG 视角的质疑,但这些发现——结合第 6 章讨论的儿童语言学习模式识别研究——很难反驳。
Ellis and Schmidt measured both accuracy and reaction time, finding an advantage for regular plurals and high-frequency items. They also found that the frequency effect was larger for irregulars, especially in the middle stages of learning. Their results differed from previous research, however, in that the early stages of acquisition showed frequency effects for regular items as well as irregulars. The sizes of these effects decreased as the learners learned more, with the size of the frequency effect on irregular items diminishing more slowly. According to Ellis and Schmidt, these findings show that the power law of practice (which states that the amount of improvement decreases as a function of increasing practice) applies to the acquisition of morphosyntax. Combining this with the finding that their connectionist model simulated the humans’ course of acquisition quite accurately when exposed to the same materials as the system at the same frequencies, they concluded that it is not in fact necessary to postulate underlying rules. Rather than there being a hybrid system of learning in which some forms are rule-generated and others are learned by associative memory, they claimed that all of the effects could be explained as a natural result of simple associative learning. Naturally, these conclusions are challenged by those working within the UG perspective, but findings such as these – taken together with work on pattern recognition in children’s language learning discussed in Chapter 6 – are hard to dispute.
第二语言习得是一个相对年轻的领域,它包含了解释第二语言学习的各种方法。虽然一个综合的理论显然是 作为大多数 SLA 研究的核心目标,当前的每种理论都从略有不同的角度看待解释第二语言学习过程的问题。大多数理论都建立在先前的研究基础上,并在其逐渐发展的过程中为我们提供了 L2 学习过程的新兴视角。随着研究人员越来越多地利用相关学科和方法的见解,理论开发和测试的过程正在进行中,这也是 SLA 如此令人兴奋的领域的原因之一。
The relatively young field of second language acquisition includes a variety of approaches to explaining second language learning. While a comprehensive theory is clearly the central goal of most SLA research, each of the current theories views the problem of explaining the second language learning process from a slightly different angle. Most theories have built on previous research and, in their gradual development, have provided us with an emerging view of the L2 learning process. With researchers increasingly taking advantage of insights from related disciplines and approaches, the process of theory development and testing is ongoing, and this is one reason why SLA is such an exciting field.
虽然上述理论主要是为了解释学习第二语言的普遍特征而开发的,即所有学习者都具有的过程和阶段,但 L2 学习者之间也存在许多差异。在儿童习得第一语言的过程中,个体差异(例如,跨性别或所学语言)在很大程度上被自然阶段和最终成就的惊人相似性所掩盖。然而,在第二语言习得中,个体差异对 L2 学习过程的影响更大,因此它们的作用近年来受到了广泛关注。现在我们来讨论 L2 学习者之间的六个重要差异领域:L1、年龄、性别、工作记忆、动机和语境。
While the theories described above were developed primarily to account for the universal features of learning second languages – that is, the processes and stages characteristic of all learners – there are also many differences among L2 learners. In first language acquisition by children, individual differences (e.g. across genders or the languages being learned) are largely overshadowed by striking similarities in terms of natural stages and ultimate attainment. However, in second language acquisition, individual differences have more of an impact on the L2 learning process, and their role has thus received considerable attention in recent years. We now turn to a discussion of six important areas of difference among L2 learners: L1, age, gender, working memory, motivation, and context.
语言学习者的母语 (L1) 是第一个受到学术界重视的个体差异之一。对比分析假设的强形式——声称所有 L2 错误都可以归因于 L1 和 L2 之间的差异——在很大程度上被推翻(如上文关于行为主义的讨论)。然而,最近的研究表明,虽然 L1 的特征不能很好地预测 L2 错误,但它们确实以微妙而复杂的方式影响 L2 的发展。研究人员指出,学习者在尝试用第二语言交流时,经常有意识地 转移或运用他们关于第一语言的知识,尤其是在学习过程的早期。当学习者认为第一语言和第二语言相似或相关时,他们更有可能转移第一语言知识。第一语言也可能影响学习者对第二语言的注意。例如,法语和英语中副词的位置规则相似但不完全相同,法国英语学习者在这方面所犯的错误不太可能造成重大交流困难。例如,我们有可能理解一个法国学习者说“我慢慢地吃着苹果”这句话。如果他/她没有收到表明这种词序在英语中是不允许的反面证据,那么学习者可能不会仅仅因为它不存在而最初意识到它不符合语法。
The language learner’s first language (L1) was one of the first individual differences to receive serious scholarly attention. The strong form of the contrastive analysis hypothesis – which claimed that all L2 errors could be attributed to differences between the L1 and L2 – was largely discredited (as discussed above in relation to behaviorism). However, recent research has suggested that while characteristics of the L1 do not strongly predict L2 errors, they do influence the development of the L2 in subtle and complicated ways. Researchers point out that learners often consciously transfer or employ their knowledge about the L1 in their attempts to communicate in the L2, especially early in the learning process. Learners are more likely to transfer L1 knowledge when they believe the L1 and L2 are similar or related. The L1 may also influence what learners notice in the L2. For example, rules for adverb placement in French and English are similar but not identical, and mistakes made by French learners of English in this regard are unlikely to cause major communication difficulties. It is possible, for instance, to understand a French learner who says I ate slowly the apples. If he/she does not receive negative evidence indicating that this word order is disallowed in English, the learner may not initially be aware that it is ungrammatical from the simple fact of its nonoccurrence.
另一个被认为在第二语言学习中起关键作用的个体差异是年龄。人们普遍认为,年龄较小的语言学习者更成功, 研究人员确实发现,至少在某些方面,第二语言的习得年龄和最终成绩之间存在关系,而年龄是预测成功的最强因素。
Another individual difference that is believed to play a key role in second language learning is age. It is commonly thought that younger language learners are more successful, and indeed researchers have found a relationship between age of acquisition and ultimate attainment in at least some aspects of the L2, with age showing itself to be the strongest predictor of success.
有人提出关键期假说来解释儿童在语言学习方面的优势。该假说最初于 20 世纪 60 年代末提出,Eric Lenneberg 认为,该假说认为,语言习得必须在青春期之前发生,这样说话者才能达到母语般的流利程度。从那时起,人们提出了许多被认为与青春期同时发生的神经变化,作为关键时期的可能原因。这些变化包括侧化(左半球成为语言主导的过程)和髓鞘化(神经元被髓鞘包裹,导致放电速度变慢的过程)。本科生研究人员还讨论了失活,他们指的是完全失去对普遍语法的访问权。然而,神经学提议存在几个问题,包括时间框架不匹配(人们认为侧化发生在五岁左右;青春期通常始于青春期前),以及有些人确实达到了母语般的流利程度,尽管他们后来才开始学习第二语言。出于这些原因,研究人员还提出,其中必定有社会因素和其他非生物因素,比如学习者对自己语言和文化的依恋、不同类型的动机,以及儿童和成人所接受的输入的数量和类型(例如,儿童可能比成年人有更多的机会在家庭以外使用第二语言——在学校和与同龄人玩耍时)。
One proposal that has been offered to explain children’s apparent advantage in language learning is the critical period hypothesis. Originally discussed in the late 1960s by Eric Lenneberg, this hypothesis states that language acquisition must occur before puberty in order for the speaker to reach native-like fluency. Since then, a number of neurological changes that are believed to coincide with puberty have been set forth as possible reasons for the critical period. These include lateralization (a process whereby the left hemisphere becomes dominant for language) and myelinization (a process whereby neurons become encased in a myelin sheath, resulting in less rapid firing). UG researchers have also discussed deactivation, by which they mean a loss of complete access to Universal Grammar. There are several problems with neurological proposals, however, including mismatches in time frames (lateralization is believed to occur around the age of five; puberty usually begins in the pre-teen years) and the fact that some individuals do achieve native-like fluency even though they began their studies of the L2 later on in life. For these reasons, researchers have also proposed that there must be social and other nonbiological factors involved, such as learners’ attachment to their own language and culture, different types of motivation, and the amount and type of input that children and adults receive (for example, children may have more opportunities to use the L2 outside the home – in school and playing with peers – than their adult counterparts).
随着对社会因素的认识不断提高,研究人员还区分了学习速度和最终成功水平。他们特别指出,尽管成年人和青少年最初学习第二语言的速度可能更快,但从长远来看,儿童通常比他们学得更快。此外,他们认为“关键期”这个标签可能用词不当。由于一些成人学习者确实达到了与母语人士相当的水平,一些研究人员主张使用敏感期这个术语来反映这样一个事实:虽然儿童更有可能成功掌握第二语言 ,但成年人 也有可能成功。
Along with this increasing recognition of social factors, researchers have also distinguished between the rate of attainment and the ultimate level of success. In particular, they have noted that even though adults and adolescents may initially be faster at learning an L2, children generally outperform them in the long run. In addition, they have argued that the label “critical period” may be a misnomer. Because some adult learners do achieve native-like proficiency in the L2, some researchers have argued for use of the term sensitive period to reflect the fact that while success in acquiring a second language may be much more likely for children, it is still possible for adults.
最近的研究还调查了与年龄相关的语言学习能力差异是否适用于语言的所有方面,还是仅适用于部分特征。年龄较小的学习者似乎在 L2 语音学方面具有优势。尽管如此,越来越多的人一致认为,即使是晚学者(即青春期后才开始学习非母语的人)也能掌握与母语人士几乎没有区别的 L2 语法。(方框 13.6提供了第二语言习得领域中关于年龄的一些最新思考的一个例子。)
Recent research has also investigated whether age-related differences in language learning ability hold for all aspects of language or only a subset of features. Younger learners do appear to have an advantage in L2 phonology. Nonetheless, there is growing consensus that even late learners (that is, people who started learning a non-native language after puberty) can achieve a mastery of L2 syntax that is nearly indistinguishable from that of native speakers. (Box 13.6 provides an example of some recent thinking about age within the field of second language acquisition.)
研究人员长期以来一直在争论第二语言学习的关键期概念,并指出一些第二语言的成人学习者实际上可以非常熟练地掌握第二语言,甚至像母语一样。虽然一些研究人员认为这些学习者提供了反对关键期的证据,但 Bley-Vroman ( 1990 ) 提出了根本差异假说,即成人的学习方法与儿童的学习方法根本不同。虽然成年人流利地说第二语言并非不可能,但这可能更加困难,因为随着时间的推移,我们的大脑会失去从大量数据中隐性学习结构的能力。一些研究人员认为,有两个关键时期,快速隐性学习会减慢速度,分别是 6-7 岁左右和 16-17 岁左右。根据这一假说,成人学习者从显性学习策略中受益更多,可以 比儿童隐性学习者更快地学习显性结构(例如基本词序、代词中的性别以及英语是非问句中的do支持)。然而,成年人学习语法结构的细微差别(例如限定词的使用和副词的位置)的能力会变慢。
Researchers have long debated the notion of a critical period for second language learning, noting that some adult learners of a second language can actually become highly proficient, even native-like, in a second language. While some researchers believe that these learners provide evidence against a critical period, Bley-Vroman (1990) has proposed the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis – that the method of learning of an adult is fundamentally differently from that of a child. While it is not impossible to become fluent in a second language as an adult, it can be more difficult since over time our brain loses the ability to learn structures implicitly from a large amount of data. Some researchers have suggested that there are two critical periods where fast implicit learning slows down, around ages 6–7 and again around 16–17. According to this hypothesis, adult learners benefit more from explicit learning strategies and can learn salient structures (such as basic word order, gender in pronouns, and do-support in English yes/no questions) faster than child learners do implicitly. However, the ability to learn subtle differences in grammatical structure (such as use of determiners and adverb placement) slows for adults.
DeKeyser ( 2000 ) 对在美国生活了 10 多年的匈牙利英语学习者进行了研究,他们的移民年龄(即首次接触英语的年龄)从 1 岁到 50 岁不等。他要求学习者对 200 个句子进行语法判断,这些句子测试了英语中各种显著或微妙的语法结构。他发现所有在 17 岁之前抵达的人都达到了高水平的英语语法。然而,随着抵达年龄的增加,熟练程度下降。只有具有高度语言或分析能力的成人学习者才能达到第二语言的高水平。他的数据表明,成人学习者通过正确的技能、对语法的关注和动机确实可以达到第二语言的高水平(有关动机的研究见框 13.9)。
DeKeyser (2000) conducted a study of Hungarian learners of English who had lived in the US for over ten years and whose age of immigration (i.e. first exposure to English) ranged from a 1 to 50 years. He asked the learners for grammaticality judgments on 200 sentences that tested various salient or subtle grammatical structures in English. He found that all those who arrived before age 17 attained a high level of grammaticality in English. However, as the age of arrival increased, proficiency level decreased. Only adult learners with a high degree of verbal or analytical abilities were able to attain a high level of proficiency in the second language. His data demonstrate that adult learners can indeed attain high proficiency in a second language with the right skill set, attention to grammar, and motivation (see Box 13.9 for studies on motivation).
另一个可能影响 L2 发展的个体差异是学习者的性别。例如,研究发现,女性比男性倾向于使用更多种类的语言学习策略,而且她们使用的频率更高。其他研究表明,女性通常对学习第二语言抱有更积极的态度,而且可能更有动力。然而,在表现方面,研究结果却相互矛盾;一些研究表明女学生的表现优于男性,而其他研究则表明相反。心理语言学研究频率效应(如上文框 13.5所述)表明,男性和女性处理语言的方式不同,女性使用(并具有优势)某些类型的记忆,而男性使用不同的记忆策略。性别也会影响课堂动态,并可能影响第二语言学习过程。例如,对非母语人士之间互动的研究表明:
Another individual difference that may impact L2 development is the gender of the learner. It has been found, for instance, that females tend to use a greater variety of language learning strategies than males and that they use them more frequently. Other studies have shown that females usually have more positive attitudes toward learning an L2 and may be more motivated. In terms of performance, however, findings have been contradictory; some research suggests that female students outperform males, while other studies suggest the opposite. Psycholinguistic studies looking at frequency effects (as discussed above in Box 13.5) suggest that males and females process language differently, with females using (and having an advantage in) some types of memory and males using different memory strategies. Gender can also influence classroom dynamics and potentially affect the second language learning process. For example, research on interactions between non-native speakers shows that:
由于不同文化群体的性别表达方式不同,因此确定第二语言学习中的性别影响是一项复杂的任务。然而,由于互动是第二语言学习的一个重要方面,话语分配不均的证据可能会对语言发展产生影响。框 13.7提供了有关最近一项关于性别和语言学习的研究的一些信息。
Since gender is expressed differently across cultural groups, identifying gender effects in second language learning is a complex task. However, because interaction is a crucial aspect of second language learning, evidence of unequal distribution of talk may have ramifications for language development. Box 13.7 provides some information about a recent study of gender and language learning.
Ross-Feldman ( 2007 ) 研究了二语学习者在进行诸如找不同活动等交际任务时两人一组的对话,发现学习者的性别会影响语言相关事件 (LRE)。LRE 是指学习者打断自己的对话以澄清语法、词汇选择或含义问题的事件。这样的事件增加了整体学习的潜力。在研究中,当男性或女性与女性配对时,语言相关事件更多。这与一般的研究结果相关,即女性往往在互动中扮演更支持的角色,并关注对话伙伴的需求,从而让另一位学习者有更多机会停止对话并提出问题。
Ross-Feldman (2007) studied the conversation of second language learners working in pairs as they carried out communicative tasks such as spot-the-difference activities, and found that the gender of the learners influenced language-related episodes (LRE). LREs are episodes in which learners interrupt their own conversations in order to clarify questions of grammar, lexical choice, or meaning. Such episodes increase the potential for overall learning. In the study, when either a male or female was paired with a female there were more language-related episodes. This is related to general findings that women tend to play a more supportive role in interactions and attend to the needs of their conversational partners, allowing the other learner more opportunities to stop the conversation and ask questions.
在男女混合环境中(即男性和女性学习者一起工作),Ross-Feldman 发现,当男性发起 LRE 时,他们的问题得到解决(采纳)的概率显著高于女性发起的问题。以下是研究中的一个示例,该示例涉及男性在故事写作任务中发起的解决型 LRE。
In a mixed-gender setting (i.e. male and female learners working together), Ross-Feldman found that when males initiated the LRE their questions were resolved (taken up) in the direction of the correct answer significantly more often than those initiated by females. Below is an example from the study of a resolved LRE initiated by a male during a story-writing task.
女:好的。好的,嗯,抹布,抹布是……男:洗碗布?女:洗碗布是一种布料,用来清洁和擦干碗碟的布料。男:啊,好的。在哪里?
FEMALE: Okay. Okay, um the dishrag, dishrag is…MALE: Dishrag?FEMALE: Dishrag, is the fabric, the fabric that you use for clean, for drying the dish.MALE: Ah, ok. Where is?
将雄性发起的 LRE 与以下雌性发起的 LRE 进行比较:
Compare the male-initiated LRE with the following female-initiated LRE:
女:交换他们的包。怎么说呢?我不知道。男:之后他们……女:他们的包。男:他们去了自助餐厅喝咖啡。
FEMALE: Interchange their bags. What is the word? I don’t know.MALE: After that they…FEMALE: Their bags.MALE: They went to the cafeteria and drink cup of coffee.
在男女混合配对中,女性发起的 LRE 更有可能被忽略和未得到解决。这一发现与研究结果一致,即男性在对话中发起的话题更经常被讨论和发展,而女性的话题变化可能会被男性忽略或打断。重要的是要明白,在研究性别行为时,结果只显示了趋势,并且性别内存在相当大的差异,性别之间的行为也有一些重叠。然而,第二语言教师可以利用这些信息来构建环境和任务,使课堂上的所有学习者受益。
The LREs initiated by females in a mixed-gender pairing were more likely to be ignored and left unresolved. This finding is in line with research that men’s topic initiations in conversation are more often discussed and developed while women’s topic changes can be ignored or interrupted by men. It is important to understand that when studying gender behavior the results only demonstrate tendencies and that there is considerable variation within genders and also some overlap in behaviors between the genders. However, second language teachers can use this information to construct environments and tasks that can benefit all learners in the classroom.
学习者之间的另一个重要差异在于他们的工作记忆容量——即他们同时存储和处理信息的能力。工作记忆 (WM) 被认为与短期记忆不同,因为它涉及某种处理和存储,而不是逐字重复信息。工作记忆测试可能会要求学习者回忆听觉呈现的句子的最后一个单词,或者以相反的顺序重复视觉呈现的数字。研究表明工作记忆在第一语言习得、语言处理(例如消除歧义句子)和语言丧失(例如阿尔茨海默病患者)中发挥着重要作用。鉴于这些发现,研究人员开始研究工作记忆与第二语言习得之间的关系。例如,研究人员发现学习者的工作记忆容量会影响他们学习第二语言词汇和语法规则的能力,以及他们的第二语言阅读能力和听力能力。这些研究提供了证据,表明工作记忆可能有助于预测第二语言学习速度的差异。
Another important way in which learners differ is in their working memory capacities – that is, in their ability to store and process information at the same time. Working memory (WM) is thought to differ from short-term memory in that it involves some sort of processing as well as storage, rather than a verbatim repetition of the information. A working memory test might ask a learner to recall the last word of sentences presented aurally or repeat back in reverse order numbers presented visually. Research suggests that working memory plays a role in first language acquisition, language processing (e.g. disambiguating sentences), and language loss (e.g. in Alzheimer’s patients). In light of these findings, researchers have begun to investigate the relationship between working memory and second language acquisition. For example, researchers have found that learners’ working memory capacities affect their ability to learn L2 vocabulary and grammatical rules, as well as their L2 reading ability and listening proficiency. Studies such as these have provided evidence that working memory may help predict differences in the rate of L2 learning.
在其中一个研究中,Mackey等人(2010)发现在延迟测试结果中,L2 表现和较高的 WM 容量之间存在显著关系。有趣的是,WM 容量较低的学习者似乎在即时后测中表现良好,但在延迟后测中却未能保持这种发展。相比之下,WM 容量较高的学习者并没有表现出最初的进步,但在延迟后测中确实有所改善。作者认为,WM 容量较高的学习者可能更能够对目标语言和他们的中介语给出的反馈进行认知比较,这对 L2 发展产生持久影响。另一方面,WM 容量较低的学习者可能没有以足够细致的方式处理反馈,因此无法在长期记忆中编码。
In one such study, Mackey et al. (2010) found a significant relationship between L2 performance and higher-WM capacity in delayed test results. Interestingly, learners with lower-WM capacity appeared to do well on the immediate post-tests, but did not maintain this development on delayed post-tests. In contrast, the higher-WM learners did not tend to demonstrate initial progress, but did show improvement on the delayed post-tests. The authors suggested that the learners with higher-WM capacity may have been better able to make cognitive comparisons between the feedback given in the target language and their interlanguage, with lasting effects for L2 development. On the other hand, the low-WM learners may not have processed the feedback in a sufficiently elaborative way so that encoding in long-term memory could occur.
评估 WM 并不总是一帆风顺的;WM 测试中涉及的数据类型和处理方式可能会影响学习者的分数。语音短期记忆 (PSTM) 通常通过记住无意义单词的能力来衡量,已被证明与词汇习得以及语法学习有关。数据的呈现方式(听觉与视觉)和数据类型(语言相关与基于数字)可能会影响学习者的 WM 分数。WM 的定义及其与 SLA 的相关性也有可能出现循环性;由于 WM 的句子跨度测试首先涉及语言处理,因此学习者在这些任务上表现出的能力应该自然地预测他们的语言。总之,重要的是要理解,虽然工作记忆对语言学习有各种影响,但 WM 可能有各种子组件和影响第二语言学习不同领域的细微能力。
Assessing WM is not always straightforward; the type of data and processing involved in a WM test may affect a learner’s scores. Phonological short-term memory (PSTM), often measured by ability to remember nonsense words, has been shown to be related to vocabulary acquisition as well as grammatical learning. The method of presentation of the data (aural versus visual) and type of data (language-related versus numerically based) may affect learners’ WM scores. There is also the potential for circularity in the definition of WM and its correlation with SLA; since sentence-span tests of WM involve language processing in the first place, learners’ demonstrated ability on such tasks should naturally predict their language. In summary, it is important to understand that while working memory has various implications for language learning there are likely to be various subcomponents of WM and nuanced abilities that affect different areas of second language learning.
动机是另一个在 L2 学习者中存在很大差异的特征。普遍的观点是,有动机的语言学习者更成功,他们愿意投入更多的时间和精力来达到目标语言的流利程度。一些研究人员甚至声称,动机是影响 SLA 的最重要的个体差异。然而,动机并不是单一的;它是一个复杂的、多维的结构。利用罗伯特·加德纳的社会教育动机模型不仅关注融合动机(包括学习者对目标语言群体的态度以及融入目标语言社区的愿望),也包括工具导向,指的是语言学习的更实际的原因,比如通过学习第二语言获得一些社会或经济回报。
Motivation is another characteristic that varies considerably across L2 learners. The commonsense view is that motivated language learners, who are willing to devote more time and energy to achieving fluency in the target language, are more successful. Some researchers have even claimed that motivation is the single most important individual difference impacting SLA. Motivation is not monolithic, however; it is a complex, multidimensional construct. Studies making use of Robert Gardner’s socio-educational model of motivation have focused not only on integrative motivation (involving the learner’s attitudes toward the target language group and the desire to integrate into the target language community), but also on instrumental orientations, which refer to more practical reasons for language learning, such as gaining some social or economic reward through L2 achievement.
人们还对动机的外在基础和内在基础进行了区分。 内在动机通常涉及与学习第二语言的人交流和社交的愿望,并且通常与非常高级的语言水平有关。那些对第二语言文化有亲和力的人会寻求更多的经验和交流机会以达到这种高级水平,这是有道理的。Dörnyei 和 Csizér ( 2002 ) 给出了一个极端的例子,说明外在动机与内在动机以及语言态度如何影响语言学习。在匈牙利,俄语(前苏联的语言)被视为压迫性权力的语言。尽管所有匈牙利学生都必须学习俄语十年,但实际上讲俄语的匈牙利人比例从 1979-1982 年的 2.9% 下降到 1994 年的仅 1%。这些统计数据表明,外在动机本身(例如语言是当地通用语)并不一定会激发和促进语言学习。为了成功习得 L2,还必须具有综合性或积极的态度。
Distinctions have also been made between extrinsic and intrinsic bases of motivation. Intrinsic motivation often involves the desire to communicate and socialize with the people of the second language being learned, and is often associated with very advanced proficiency in the language. It makes sense that those who have an affinity for the second language culture would seek out more experiences and communication opportunities in order to attain this advanced level of proficiency. Dörnyei and Csizér (2002) give an extreme example of how extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation and language attitudes can affect language learning. In Hungary, Russian, the language of the former USSR, was seen as the language of an oppressive power. Although all Hungarian students had to study Russian for ten years, the proportion of Hungarians who actually spoke Russian decreased from 2.9% in 1979–1982 to only 1% in 1994. These statistics demonstrate that an extrinsic motive by itself, such as the language being a local lingua franca, does not necessarily motivate and promote language learning. There must also be an integrative aspect or positive attitude toward the L2 in order for successful acquisition to occur.
尽管 SLA 研究人员仍在争论动机是否会导致语言学习(例如通过让学习者接触更多输入)或语言学习成功是否会产生动机,但最近的一些研究确实表明动机有助于预测 L2 学习者最终达到的熟练程度。研究还表明,动机在学习过程中会发生变化,每天都会有所不同,甚至因任务而异。学习者的动机似乎还受到诸如群体动态、学习环境、学习者的自我形象,甚至学习者对话伙伴的动机等因素的影响。研究进一步为精明的学生和教师已经发现的事实提供了证据:多样化和具有挑战性的教学活动有助于学习者集中注意力并参与学习,并促进第二语言学习过程。(有关动机研究的两个示例,请参阅框 13.9。
Although SLA researchers are still debating whether motivation causes language learning (e.g. by putting learners in contact with more input) or whether success in language learning gives rise to motivation, some recent studies do suggest that motivation helps to predict the level of proficiency that an L2 learner ultimately attains. Studies also show that motivation can change during the learning process, varying from day to day and even from task to task. A learner’s motivation additionally appears to be affected by such factors as group dynamics, the learning environment, the learner’s self-image, and even the learner’s conversational partner’s motivation. Research has further provided evidence for what savvy students and teachers have already figured out: varied and challenging instructional activities help learners to stay focused and engaged in learning and facilitate the second language learning process. (For two examples of studies of motivation, see Box 13.9.)
在 SLA 中,语境一词有两种不同的用法。它用于指代学习发生的环境背景——在沉浸式课程中、在国外学习期间、在家里听录音带时、在大学课堂上等等。它还用于指代语言背景,例如对话的主题、可以从周围话语中收集到的含义,以及(更社会化的)学习者与之互动的人。越来越多的证据表明,各种语境因素都可能影响第二语言学习过程。
There are two different ways in which the term context is used in SLA. It is used to refer to the environmental context in which the learning occurs – in an immersion program, during study abroad, at home with an audiotape, in a university classroom, and so on. It is also used to refer to linguistic context, such as the topic of the conversation, the meanings that can be gleaned from surrounding discourse, and (more socially) the person with whom the learner is interacting. There is increasing evidence that all sorts of contextual factors may affect the second language learning process.
为了研究语境在 SLA 中的作用,Collentine 和 Freed ( 2004 ) 最近进行了一项研究,比较了两组以英语为母语的学生在学习西班牙语时所取得的相对语言进步。一组学生在美国的一所大学学习,另一组学生参加了西班牙的留学项目,与西班牙家庭住在一起。在学习前后,研究人员对学生的语言能力进行了测量,并使用口语访谈(以及其他措施)来确定熟练程度。留学组在口语流利度和 他们的叙述能力也得到了更大的提高。另一方面,美国学习者的词汇语法进步比留学生要大。尽管两组学生在学习过程中都有所提高,但他们在元音之间的浊擦音方面都没有显著提高,例如todo “全部”、“ pagar “付钱”和vaya “去”(非母语人士最难发出的西班牙语声音)。值得注意的是,虽然这些研究并不表明一种环境在所有语言技能方面都优于另一种环境,但它们确实表明了环境对 L2 特定方面的发展的影响。在第二语言环境中学习 L2 的学生(例如,在美国学习英语)可能会发展出与 L2 学习者在外国语言环境中(例如,在本国学习英语)发展出的优势和劣势不同的优势和劣势。
In order to investigate the role of context in SLA, recent research by Collentine and Freed (2004) has compared the relative linguistic gains made by two groups of native English-speaking students learning Spanish. One group studied at a university in the US, while the other took part in a study-abroad program in Spain, living with Spanish families. Students’ language abilities were measured before and after the course of their studies, using oral interviews (among other measures) in order to determine proficiency. The study-abroad group significantly outperformed the US learners on oral fluency and also made greater improvements in their narrative abilities. On the other hand, the US learners experienced more lexico-grammatical growth than did their study-abroad counterparts. Although both groups improved over the course of their studies, however, neither improved significantly in their production of intervocalic voiced fricatives in such words as todo ‘all,’ pagar ‘to pay,’ and vaya ‘go’ (some of the most difficult sounds of Spanish for non-native speakers to produce). It is interesting to note that while these studies do not suggest that one context is superior to another for all language skills, they do show the influence that context can have on the development of particular aspects of the L2. Students learning an L2 in a second language context (for instance, learning English in the US) are likely to develop strengths and weaknesses which differ from those developed by L2 learners in a foreign language context (for instance, learning English in their home country).
除了研究第二语言学习理论以及第二语言学习者在个体差异方面可能存在哪些差异外,研究人员还试图了解学习者共有的各种与过程相关的因素。为此,SLA 研究人员专注于第二语言学习的心理语言学——例如,研究注意力、发展模式和僵化在第二语言习得中的作用。现在我们来讨论一下这些过程。
In addition to investigating theories about how second languages are learned and how second language learners may vary in terms of individual differences, researchers also seek to understand various process-related factors that learners have in common. To this end, SLA researchers have focused on the psycholinguistics of second language learning – studying, for example, the roles of attention, developmental patterns, and fossilization in L2 acquisition. We now turn to a discussion of each of these processes.
注意力在语言学习中扮演什么角色?在学习第一语言时,孩子们似乎常常没有意识到自己的错误以及父母偶尔做出的纠正。研究和轶事证据表明,孩子们经常忽视他们所说的话(例如,我抱着小鸭子)和提供给他们的模型(我抱着小鸭子)之间的区别;但他们仍然以惊人的速度和准确性掌握母语。然而,对于第二语言学习者来说,有人假设有意识地注意目标语言输入中的语言形式是学习发生的必要条件。这是SLA 的注意假设,由Richard Schmidt ( 2001 )。根据这一假说,潜意识或无意识的学习是不可能的。换句话说,那些没有被注意到的 L2 特征不会存储在短期记忆系统中,因此不会被学习。Schmidt 的假说进一步声称,由于学习者接触的语言输入远远超过他们能够处理的范围,因此需要某种机制(注意力)来帮助他们整理大量的语言数据,并最终将数据编码到记忆中(即学习)。
What is the role of attention in language learning? When acquiring their first language, children often seem to be unaware of their own mistakes and of the corrections occasionally made by their parents. Research and anecdotal evidence have suggested that children frequently disregard the difference between what they say (e.g. I holded the baby ducks) and the models that are offered to them (I held the baby ducks); yet they still acquire their native languages with remarkable speed and accuracy. For second language learners, however, it has been hypothesized that conscious attention to linguistic form in the target language input is necessary for learning to occur. This is the central claim of the noticing hypothesis of SLA, put forward by Richard Schmidt (2001). According to this hypothesis, subliminal or unconscious learning is impossible. In other words, those features of the L2 that are not noticed do not get stored in the short-term memory system and thus are not learned. Schmidt’s hypothesis further claims that since learners are exposed to much more language input than they can process, some kind of mechanism (attention) is necessary to help them sort through the large volume of language data and eventually to encode the data into memory (that is, to learn).
为检验这一假设并探索注意力在二语学习中的作用,研究人员在明确定义注意力是什么以及如何准确测量注意力方面遇到了困难;不过,一些研究人员目前正在使用更直接的方法来测量意识。一种方法是通过创新应用研究 最初用于哲学和心理学等其他领域的方法。例如,出声思考协议要求学习者在执行任务时用语言表达他们的思维过程。另一种方法要求学习者在任务或互动完成后对其进行评论,通常使用刺激物,例如原始互动的录像带。这被称为“刺激回忆”,是一种越来越流行的方法,用于揭示学习者在语言任务期间关注或注意到的信息。两个学习者可能通过非常不同的方法得出相同的答案,这些内省叙述可以洞察他们的内部过程。这些言语表达,无论是在线的还是回顾性的,都使研究人员能够了解在执行任务期间如何将注意力吸引到第二语言的特定形式上。使用此类方法进行的许多研究发现越来越多的证据表明注意力是 L2 发展的关键认知过程之一。
Research seeking to test this hypothesis and explore the role of attention in L2 learning has faced difficulties in clearly defining exactly what attention is and obtaining accurate measurements of it; however, some researchers are currently using more direct methods of measuring awareness. One way is through innovative applications of research methodologies originally used in other fields such as philosophy and psychology. Think-aloud protocols, for example, ask learners to verbalize their thought processes while they perform a task. Another method asks the learner to comment on a task or interaction after it has taken place, often using a stimulus such as a videotape of the original interaction. This is known as “stimulated recall” and is an increasingly popular method of uncovering information about what learners were attending to or noticing during language tasks. Two learners may derive the same answer through very different methods, and these introspective narrations provide insight into their internal processes. These verbalizations, whether online or retrospective, allow the researcher to understand how attention is drawn to particular forms in the second language during a task. Many studies carried out using such methods are finding increasing evidence that attention is one of the key cognitive processes underlying L2 development.
SLA 研究的一个主要目标是确定是否存在所有第二语言学习者都共有的常规发展序列。发展序列是 L2 学习者在习得第二语言时经历的一系列可识别的阶段。这种研究方法包括确定特定语言特征的学习时间以及检查错误如何随时间变化(错误分析)。这项研究表明,第二语言学习者以常规、系统的方式习得非母语,就像学习者习得母语一样。例如,无论他们的 L1 和他们接收的输入类型如何,英语学习者在学习否定和疑问句时都会经历类似的发展阶段序列。研究表明,指导可以加快发展序列的进程,但不能改变学习阶段的顺序。这些有趣的发现使一些研究人员得出结论,学习第二语言涉及心理语言学过程,而这些过程仅受语境因素和学习者的 L1 的影响很小。框 13.8展示了 SLA 中经过充分研究的发展序列。
A major goal of SLA research has been to determine whether there are regular developmental sequences that are common to all second language learners. A developmental sequence is a series of identifiable stages that L2 learners pass through in acquiring the second language. Research approaches in this vein have included identifying when specific linguistic features are learned and examining how errors change over time (error analysis). This research shows that second language learners acquire the non-native language in a regular, systematic fashion, much like learners acquiring their native languages. For example, regardless of their L1 and the type of input they receive, learners of English pass through similar sequences of developmental stages when learning negation and question formation. Research suggests that instruction can speed up passage through a developmental sequence, but it cannot alter the order of the learning stages. These interesting findings have led some researchers to conclude that learning a second language involves psycholinguistic processes that are only minimally influenced by contextual factors and the learner’s L1. Box 13.8 illustrates a well-researched developmental sequence in SLA.
疑问句形成是英语作为第二语言习得过程中最容易理解的发展顺序之一。大多数研究人员发现,英语第二语言学习者在学习如何用英语提出问题时通常会经历相似的阶段,并且他们的学习顺序也相同(见下表,该表格基于 Pienemann 和 Johnston 1986 年的研究)。如果疑问句形成的发展受到母语的影响,那么中文母语人士与西班牙语母语人士的疑问句形成模式就会明显不同。然而,研究人员发现事实并非如此;此类过程不受学习者的母语或他们接收的输入的数量和类型的影响,这表明所有人类共有的心理语言学过程是 SLA 背后的驱动力。
Question formation is one of the best understood developmental sequences in the acquisition of English as a second language. Most researchers have found that second language learners of English typically pass through similar stages in learning how to form questions in English and that they do so in the same order (see the table below, which is based on research by Pienemann and Johnston 1986). If the development of question formation were influenced by one’s native language, a native speaker of Chinese would have a noticeably different pattern of question development than would a native speaker of Spanish, for example. However, researchers have found that this is not the case; such processes are not affected by the learner’s L1 or the amount and type of input they receive, suggesting that underlying psycholinguistic processes common to all human beings are the driving force behind SLA.
尽管存在着规律的发展模式,但第二语言学习最显著(也是最令人沮丧)的特征之一是,即使经过多年的学习和练习,L2 学习者听起来也往往不像母语人士。有人认为,语言学习通常会僵化,并永远停留在与母语人士的口语水平不符的水平。最近,一些研究人员指出,很难确定语言学习是真正停止了,还是只是暂时停滞了。因此,他们提出了一个术语稳定化比化石化更合适。
Even though there are regular developmental patterns, one of the most salient (and frustrating) traits of second language learning is that L2 learners often do not sound like native speakers even after many years of study and practice. It has been argued that language learning typically fossilizes and remains permanently at a level short of native-like speech. More recently, some researchers have pointed out the difficulty of determining whether language learning has truly ceased or simply hit a temporary plateau. They have thus suggested the term stabilization is more appropriate than fossilization.
人们对这一现象提出了各种各样的解释。如前所述,一种解释是,在儿童时期非常有效的语言习得机制和过程对年龄较大的学习者来说可能效果较差,导致 L2 发展不完整。语言背后也可能存在社会语言学因素 学习稳定性:年龄较大的学习者可能更依赖自己的相比儿童,社会和语言身份更复杂的学习者可能认为听起来像第二语言的母语人士并不那么重要。此外,学习者似乎往往稳定在他们具有交流能力的水平,因此不再收到关于他们非目标语言的反馈话语。然而,直到最近,研究人员才开始对第二语言的发展进行必要的纵向研究,以调查语言学习停滞背后的因素。(有关纵向研究和横断面研究之间的差异,请参阅下文方框 13.9)。
A wide variety of explanations have been offered to account for this phenomenon. As discussed earlier, one proposal is that the language acquisition mechanisms and processes that work so well in childhood may work less effectively for older learners, resulting in incomplete L2 development. There may also be sociolinguistic factors behind language learning stabilization: older learners, who may be more attached to their own social and linguistic identities than children, may find it less important to sound like native speakers of an L2. Furthermore, learners often seem to stabilize at a point where they are communicatively competent and therefore are no longer receiving feedback on their nontargetlike utterances. However, only very recently have researchers begun to conduct the necessary longitudinal studies of L2 development to investigate the factors behind plateaus in language learning. (See Box 13.9 below on the differences between longitudinal and cross-sectional studies.)
纵向研究和横断面研究的主要区别在于时间在研究内容中的作用。一般来说,纵向研究涉及在不同时间点从同一个人或群体收集数据,研究人员会在数周、数月甚至数年内定期收集数据,以检查特定个人或群体随时间的变化情况。典型的纵向研究可能会试图比较一组学习者在时间 A、B 和 C 时的表现或对特定语言结构的了解。另一方面,在横断面研究中,数据通常在单个时间点收集,研究人员寻找数据中的关系或模式。例如,横断面研究可能会通过查看在某一时间点从初级、中级和高级学习者收集的数据来检查学习者对语言结构的了解。在横断面研究中,还可以从可比的学习者群体中收集数据,这些群体在研究人员感兴趣的变量上有所不同,例如接触特定语言教学方法的时间长短。为了说明纵向研究和横断面研究之间的一些差异,我们首先考虑两项使用问卷和调查来研究第二语言学习动机的研究,然后考虑第三项研究,该研究考察不同年龄段学习者的动机和习得率的差异。
The main differences between longitudinal and cross-sectional studies concern the role of time in what is being investigated. In general, longitudinal studies involve collecting data from the same individuals or groups at different points in time, with the researcher collecting data regularly over many weeks, months, or even years to examine how a particular individual or group changes over time. A typical longitudinal study might seek to compare one group of learners’ performance or knowledge of a particular linguistic structure at times A, B, and C. In cross-sectional research, on the other hand, data are typically collected at a single point in time, with the researcher looking for relationships or patterns in the data. For example, a cross-sectional study might examine learners’ knowledge of a linguistic structure by looking at data collected at one point in time from beginning, intermediate, and advanced learners. In cross-sectional research, data can also be collected from comparable groups of learners that differ in a variable of interest to the researcher, such as the length of exposure to a particular language teaching approach. To illustrate some of the differences between longitudinal and cross-sectional research, we will first consider two studies that used questionnaires and surveys to investigate motivation in second language learning, and then consider a third study that examined differences in motivation and rate of acquisition among learners of different age groups.
Dörnyei 和 Csizér ( 2002 )在一项纵向研究中研究了 8,593 名匈牙利语言学习者的数据(一次在 1993 年,另一次在 1999 年),比较了两组数据,以了解学习者在 20 世纪 90 年代匈牙利发生的重大社会文化变化背景下对五种目标语言(英语、德语、法语、意大利语和俄语)学习的看法发生了怎样的变化和演变。Dörnyei 和 Csizér 发现,除英语外,学生学习外语的积极性总体下降。他们将这些数据解读为反映了所谓的“语言全球化”过程,即全球语言(即英语)的学习和其他外语的学习在学习者的学习动机方面表现出越来越不同的模式。 (事实上,英语和其他当地通用语已经以惊人的速度对全球许多语言构成了威胁。有关环境和经济对语言学习和语言丧失的影响的进一步讨论, 请参阅 Nettle 和 Romaine 2000。 )
In a study that adopted a longitudinal approach, Dörnyei and Csizér (2002) examined data collected from 8,593 Hungarian language learners, once in 1993 and again in 1999, comparing the two data sets in order to see how the learners’ views had changed and evolved with respect to the learning of five target languages (English, German, French, Italian, and Russian) in light of the significant sociocultural changes that took place in Hungary in the 1990s. Dörnyei and Csizér found that there was an overall decline in the students’ motivation to learn foreign languages, except in the case of English. They interpreted these data as reflecting what they called a “language globalization” process, whereby the study of the global language (i.e. English) and that of the other foreign languages showed an increasingly deviating pattern in terms of learners’ motivations for study. (Indeed, English – and other local lingua francas – have become a threat to many languages across the globe at an alarmingly increasing rate. See Nettle and Romaine 2000 for a further discussion on environmental and economic effects on language learning and loss.)
Clément、Dörnyei 和 Noels( 1994 )采用横断面研究设计,收集了匈牙利高中生学习英语的态度信息,对 301 名学生进行了一次性调查,发现学生学习语言的态度与他们的自信心、动机模式和学习环境之间存在一定的关系,并进一步观察到语言自信心是 L2 动机的重要组成部分。
Using a cross-sectional design, Clément, Dörnyei, and Noels (1994) gathered information about Hungarian high school students’ attitudes towards learning English. They administered a one-time survey to 301 students, finding a relationship between the students’ attitudes toward learning the language and their self-confidence, motivational patterns, and the learning environment, and further observing that linguistic self-confidence is an important component of L2 motivation.
在一个不同类型的横断面研究中,Cenoz ( 2003 ) 收集了西班牙 135 名中小学生的数据,以查明 (1)当学习时间保持不变时,年龄较大的儿童还是年龄较小的儿童获得第三语言(英语)的速度更快;(2)从小就教授目标语言时,他们的态度和动机是更积极还是更消极; (3)年龄较小的儿童比年龄较大的儿童更倾向于混合使用多种语言。所有参与者都接受了 600 小时的英语教学,但他们开始学习的年龄不同(四岁、八岁和十一岁)。Cenoz 发现,年龄最大的学习者在大多数语言能力测试中取得了明显更高的成绩,但年龄最小的学习者表现出比年龄较大的学习者更积极的态度和学习英语的动机。在口语生成任务的代码转换方面,两组之间没有显著差异。然而,这项研究还表明,对不同年龄段的学习者群体进行横断面比较存在困难。年龄较大的学生的认知成熟度和更好的应试策略可能有助于解释他们语言发展水平较高。就学生报告的动机和熟练程度测试的性质而言,年龄较大的学习者接受的教学方式可能更为传统,包括语法和写作练习,而针对年龄较小的孩子的教学方式则更注重口语和积极性。
In an example of a different sort of cross-sectional study, Cenoz (2003) collected data from 135 primary and secondary students in Spain to find out whether (1) the rate of acquisition of a third language (English) was higher for older or younger children when learning time was held constant, (2) attitudes and motivation were more or less positive when the target language was taught from an early age, and (3) younger children tended to mix languages more often than older children. All participants had had 600 hours of instruction in English, but they had started learning at different ages (four, eight, and eleven years old). Cenoz found that the oldest group of learners obtained significantly higher results on most tests of language proficiency, but that the youngest learners showed more positive attitudes and motivation for learning English than the older groups. There were no significant differences between the groups in terms of code-switching on an oral production task. The study also, however, demonstrated the difficulty involved in making cross-sectional comparisons of groups of learners at different ages. It is possible that the older students’ cognitive maturity and better developed test-taking strategies could help to explain their higher levels of linguistic development. In relation to both the students’ reported motivation and the nature of the proficiency testing, it may also be of consequence that the older learners had received more traditional instruction, with grammar and writing practice, whereas the teaching methods for the younger children were more oral-based and active.
第二语言习得理论与第二语言教学法之间的关系是该领域讨论的焦点。一些 SLA 研究人员专注于第二语言习得的心理语言学方面,与形式语言学和认知科学的研究人员保持一致。这些研究人员通常认为 SLA 和 L2 教学法之间不需要有任何关系。其他 SLA 研究人员认为,如果谨慎地将 SLA 研究结果应用于语言教学法,可能会有所帮助。例如,研究表明,英语学习者将在学习过程的相对较晚的阶段掌握第三人称单数s(她唱歌,他走路)。然而,大多数入门教科书在前几章中将这种形式作为一般现在时的一部分介绍。如果教师了解 SLA 研究结果并能相应地调整教科书,那么教师所教内容与学习者准备学习内容之间的这种不匹配就可以轻松纠正。一些语言教师渴望了解研究可以告诉他们的一切,以优化教学实践,而另一些语言教师则对应用似乎与他们自己的课堂和教学环境无关的研究结果持谨慎态度。多年来,人们做出了许多尝试,试图将 SLA 研究和语言教学结合起来。在接下来的部分中,我们将讨论一些 L2 教学方法,并报告其中一些方法借鉴了学习理论。
The relationship between second language acquisition theory and second language pedagogy is the focus of much discussion in the field. Some SLA researchers have concentrated on the psycholinguistic aspects of second language acquisition, aligning themselves with researchers in formal linguistics and cognitive science. These researchers typically maintain that there need be no relationship between SLA and L2 pedagogy. Other SLA researchers believe that the results of SLA studies can be helpful if applied cautiously to language pedagogy. For example, research indicates that learners of English will acquire the third-person singular s (She sings, he walks) at a relatively late stage in the learning process. However, most introductory textbooks present this form in early chapters as part of the simple present tense. This mismatch between what teachers teach and what learners are ready to learn can be easily corrected if the teacher is aware of SLA research findings and can adapt the textbook accordingly. Some language teachers are eager to find out everything that research can tell them in order to optimize instructional practices, while others are cautious about applying the results of studies that do not appear to be relevant to their own classrooms and teaching contexts. Over the years, a number of attempts have been made to bring SLA research and language pedagogy together. In the section that follows, we will discuss some of the methodologies for L2 teaching and report where some of them have drawn on theories of learning.
语言教学方法反映了关于语言学习过程和目的的思想。最早的外语教学方法之一是语法翻译法。传统上用于教授希腊语和拉丁语,其前提是学习这些语言的主要目的是将其作为文学翻译和研究的工具,作为逻辑和推理的智力练习,以及作为学习者博学的证据。最终目标不是口头交流;相反,学习者需要不断参考母语来发展对语言结构的明确了解。因此,语法翻译法使用古典文学文本来教授目标语言的词汇和语法。衡量成功的标准是学生将句子(书面形式)从第二语言翻译成第一语言(反之亦然)的能力,这些句子主要作为特定语法点的范例,而不是现实世界意义的载体。
Language teaching methodologies reflect ideas about the processes and purposes of language learning. One of the earliest teaching methods for foreign language learning was the Grammar Translation approach. Traditionally used to teach Greek and Latin, it was based on the premise that the main purpose for studying these languages was as a tool for literary translation and research, as an effortful intellectual exercise in logic and deduction, and as evidence of the learners’ erudition. The end goal was not oral communication; rather, learners were expected to develop explicit knowledge of language structure with constant reference to the L1. Accordingly, the Grammar Translation approach used classical literary texts to teach the vocabulary and grammar of the target language. Success was measured by students’ ability to translate sentences (in writing) from the L2 into the L1 (and vice versa), and these sentences served mainly as exemplars of particular grammatical points as opposed to carriers of real-world meanings.
随着对其他外语口语能力的需求增加,这种方法逐渐失宠。它被一种更“自然”的方法所取代,称为直接方法(与 Charles Berlitz 的工作相关),该方法认为非母语与母语一样,无需翻译和详细的语法解释即可学习。当时的教师和研究人员注意到儿童学习语言的容易程度,并得出结论,强调理解和传达意义的重要性的方法对成年人也很有用。因此,与第一语言学习一样,以目标语言的现代对话风格进行自发的口头互动被视为至关重要;语法方法是归纳性的,强调具体的日常词汇。直接方法的支持者认为,如果教师用第二语言呈现所有信息,并在必要时使用动作或图片,第二语言学习者可以自然而直接地掌握第二语言。
With an increase in the demand for oral proficiency in other foreign languages, this approach gradually fell out of favor. It was replaced by a more “natural” approach called the Direct Method (associated with the work of Charles Berlitz), which held that non-native languages, just like native languages, could be learned without translation and detailed grammar explanations. Teachers and researchers at the time had been noticing the ease with which children learn languages and concluded that an approach emphasizing the importance of understanding and conveying meaning could be useful for adults as well. Thus, as in first language learning, spontaneous oral interaction in a modern conversational style of the target language was seen as crucial; the approach to grammar was inductive, and concrete, everyday vocabulary was emphasized. Proponents of the Direct Method argued that if teachers presented all information in the L2, using actions or pictures when necessary, the second language learner could acquire the L2 naturally and directly.
从 20 世纪 50 年代到 80 年代,人们将其称为“方法时代”,因为这一时期出现了许多相当详细的教学方法建议。听说法强调口语,主张语法应以归纳方式教授,很少或根本不用解释语法。听说法以行为主义原则为基础,通过对第一语言和第二语言的对比分析,认为语言学习本质上是习惯的养成,需要模仿、死记硬背、教师反馈、大量练习和过度学习来养成习惯。听说法不太强调意义,而是按顺序逐个呈现结构,并且认为在抑制学习者错误的同时,对学习者的正确回答给予积极的强化非常重要。
The period from the 1950s to the 1980s has been referred to as “The Age of Methods” because a number of quite detailed proposals for teaching approaches emerged during this time. The Audiolingual Method emphasized spoken language and maintained that grammar should be taught inductively, with little or no explicit grammar explanation. Based on the principles of behaviorism and drawing on contrastive analyses of the L1 and L2, the Audiolingual Method claimed that language learning was essentially habit formation, requiring mimicry, rote memorization, teacher feedback, extensive drills, and over-learning to form habits. There was not much emphasis on meaning; rather, structures were presented one at a time in sequence, and it was seen as important to provide positive reinforcement for learners’ correct responses while suppressing their errors.
20 世纪 60 年代行为主义失宠之后,一种名为“社区语言学习”的新型外语教学方法开始受到更多关注。L2 教师和创新者利用认知和教育心理学领域的研究见解(例如维果茨基和皮亚杰的研究),从而开发出更加人性化的方法,重点关注学习中的社交互动以及情感和人际因素。在这种方法中,教师被视为辅导员而不是指导者,他们提供了一个温暖、富有同理心且没有威胁性的环境,让客户(学生)可以摆脱学习新语言的不安全感和焦虑感。通过这种方式,学习者逐渐变得更加独立,能够使用 L2 来表达自己的想法。
After behaviorism fell out of favor in the 1960s, a new approach to foreign language teaching known as Community Language Learning began to receive more attention. L2 teachers and innovators made use of research insights in the fields of cognitive and educational psychology (e.g. by Vygotsky and Piaget), which led them to develop more humanistic methods focusing on the social interaction and affective and interpersonal factors in learning. In this method, teachers were seen as counselors rather than instructors, providing a warm, empathic, and nonthreatening environment where their clients (the students) could shed their insecurities and anxieties about learning a new language. In this way, the learners were gradually supposed to become more independent in using the L2 to express their own thoughts.
大约在同一时间,另一种名为“沉默法”(由 Caleb Gattegno 开发)的方法也变得更加普及。然而,与社区语言学习相比,这种方法背后的原理更多地关注认知而不是情感。在这种方法中,将学习语言视为解决问题,老师只在必要时说话,从而鼓励学生自己弄清楚语言规则,而不是依靠老师来示范和指导这一过程。人们认为,提高学生对第二语言的认识并成为自主学习者很重要。为此,广泛使用彩色图表等道具来刺激学生分析和使用目标语言。
Around the same time, another method called the Silent Way (developed by Caleb Gattegno) also became more widespread. In contrast to Community Language Learning, however, the rationale behind this approach was more concerned with cognition than with affect. In this method, which viewed learning language as problem-solving, the teacher spoke only when necessary, thus encouraging students to figure out the rules of the language by themselves instead of relying on the teacher to model and guide the process. It was seen as important for students to raise their awareness about the L2 and become autonomous learners. To this end, props such as color-coded charts were used extensively to stimulate student analysis and use of the target language.
20 世纪 80 年代初,自然法开始流行。基于上述输入和自然顺序假设,人们认为,如果学习者的情感过滤足够低,那么当接触到略高于他们当前熟练程度的可理解输入时,他们就会自动习得目标语言。虽然自然法没有使用任何独特的技巧,而是自由地借鉴了其他方法,但它在关注语言环境中有意义的交流方面具有创新性。在没有威胁的课堂环境中。然而,随着对克拉申语言习得理论的批评越来越多,自然方法开始让位于交际语言教学 (CLT) 是当今课堂上最常用的教学方法之一。
In the early 1980s, the Natural Approach became popular. Based on the Input and Natural Order Hypotheses discussed above, it was believed that if learners had a low enough affective filter, they would automatically acquire the target language when exposed to comprehensible input slightly above their current proficiency level. While the Natural Approach did not use any unique techniques, borrowing freely instead from other methods, it was innovative in its focus on meaningful communication within a nonthreatening classroom environment. However, with increasing criticism of Krashen’s theories of language acquisition, the natural approach began to give way to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which is now one of the most commonly employed approaches in classrooms today.
与自然教学法一样,CLT 也强调交流是促进语言发展的一种手段。然而,自然教学法几乎只关注口语和意义(很少关注形式问题),而 CLT 则涉及所有四项技能(口语、听力、阅读和写作)。它还吸收了最近关于积极学习者参与的重要性以及发展交际能力,强调学生需要能够以语言和文化上适当的方式产生语言来完成某些功能。例如,两个学生可以一起进行地图活动,找出从学校到餐馆的正确路线。一个学习者有一组MapQuest的路线,其中一半被划掉,另一个学习者有实际的地图。在没有看到对方的图片的情况下,他们必须使用方位结构、问题和否定词一起合作,才能用足够流利和准确的语言成功完成任务。在 CLT 中,教师的角色不是提供可理解的输入,而是充当顾问和促进者,回答问题并创造学习环境,让学生可以进行有目的的交流(通过游戏、角色扮演、解决问题的活动等)。这些活动通常侧重于具有有意义目的的特定交流功能,例如在未经排练的环境中发出邀请或提供建议。框 13.10提供了交流方法中典型活动的示例。
Like the Natural Approach, CLT also highlights communication as a means of facilitating language development. However, whereas the Natural Approach focused almost exclusively on speaking and paying attention to meaning (with little attention to matters of form), CLT addresses all four skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing). It also incorporates recent insights about the importance of active learner participation and the development of communicative competence, emphasizing that students need to be able to produce language in linguistically and culturally appropriate ways to carry out certain functions. For example, two students could work together on a map activity to figure out the correct route to a restaurant from the school. One learner would have a set of directions from MapQuest with half of them blanked out, and the other learner would have the actual map. Without seeing each other’s pictures, they would have to work together using locative constructions, questions, and negatives in order to complete the task successfully with language that is sufficiently fluent and accurate. In CLT, the teacher’s role is not so much to provide comprehensible input, but rather to act as an advisor and facilitator, answering questions and creating learning situations in which students can engage in purposeful communication (through games, role plays, problem-solving activities, and the like). These activities typically focus on a particular communicative function with a meaningful purpose, such as making an invitation or offering advice in an unrehearsed context. Box 13.10 provides an example of a typical activity within the communicative approach.
以下是母语人士 (NS) 和非母语人士 (NNS) 之间的对话。母语人士询问非母语人士是否愿意打耳洞。非母语人士拒绝了,并能够练习谈判和文化上适当的拒绝方法。
Below is a conversation between a native speaker (NS) and a non-native speaker (NNS). The native speaker asks the non-native speaker whether or not she would like to have her ears pierced. The non-native speaker refuses and is able to practice negotiation and culturally appropriate refusal methods.
NS:是的。你愿意打这样的耳洞吗?NNS:哦,是的。(点头)NS:你愿意吗?好,我会打电话给我的女朋友,我女儿,看看我女朋友对我的耳朵做了什么?所有这些耳钉?NNS:点头NS:我现在就给我女朋友打电话。好吗?可以吗?NNS:等一下NS:啥什么?NNS:我想打耳洞,但有一天,我会同意的NS:哦,但她现在就可以做到,她做得很好,她明白她说的,我的意思是它不疼,只是有点刺痛,你知道吗?然后一切都结束了?她做得很好,NNS:哦不,但是呃NS:我的耳朵只感染了三个月(笑)NNS:但是我呃nn我还没有确定,nnNS:你还没有下定决心NNS:嗯,同意NS:我可以马上打电话给我的女朋友。NNS:哦,不,非常感谢NS:你确定吗?NNS:点头NS:当然可以?我可以,我们直接做就可以了,而且只需要二十分钟,不会花很长时间NNS:哦不NS:我可以打电话给她NNS:不用了,谢谢NS:好的,好的,NNS:点头(摘自 Gass 和 Houck 1999)
NS: yeah. y’d l-wouldja like to get your ears pierced like that?NNS: oh yes. (NOD)NS: you’d like to? good I’ll call my girlfriend, my g-see see what my girlfriend did to my ears? all these studs?NNS: NODNS: I’m gonna call my girlfriend right now. ok? all right?NNS: wait a minuteNS: what what?NNS: I want to pierce my ears but mm someday, mm NODNS: oh but she can do it right now, she does it really well, she see see what she said I mean it doesn’t hurt it just hurts y’know it’s a little sting? and then it’s all over? she does it really well,NNS: oh no, but uhNS: my ears were only infected for three months (laughs)NNS: but I uh nn I’m not determined yet, nnNS: you’re not determined yetNNS: umm yeh NODNS: … I can call my girlfriend (.) right away,NNS: oohh nn no thank you very muchNS: are you sure?NNS: NODNS: sure? I c’n we c’n just do it and it just takes twenty minutes, it doesn’t take a long timeNNS: ohhh no hhNS: I can call herNNS: no thank youNS: ok, ok, all right,NNS: NOD(From Gass and Houck 1999)
重要的是要记住,如今大多数语言教师并不严格遵循某一种方法,而是根据课程目标、学习者的特点、制度因素等,结合多种方法。与其将交际语言教学视为一种具体的方法,不如将其视为一种反映语言学习过程和目的性质的理论的整体方法。图 13.1给出了一个示例,说明如何在本节讨论的每种方法下教授一个语言目标,即介词。
It is important to remember that today most language teachers do not adhere strictly to one method or another, but instead use a combination of approaches, depending upon the goals of the lesson, the characteristics of their learners, and institutional factors, among other things. Instead of thinking of Communicative Language Teaching as a concrete method, it may make more sense to view it as an overall approach reflecting theories about the nature of the processes and purposes for language learning. Figure 13.1 gives an example of how one linguistic target, prepositions, might be taught under each of the approaches discussed in this section.
二语习得研究和语言理论的进步影响了人们对语言学习和教学方式的看法。当前的二语习得研究表明,在选择方法时,教师还需要考虑学习者的背景、他们所处的环境和制度约束,以及他们自己的经验和直觉,即在二语课堂上什么方法对学习者有效,什么方法对学习者无效。二语习得理论不应规定课堂上会发生什么,但它可以为语言教师提供有关课堂可能性和想法的信息,教师可以评估这些信息并根据这些信息进行调整。例如,认知语言学目前正在提出关于如何教授介词的想法,这表明理想的教学策略是从认知语言学的角度解释介词在空间方面如何相互关联,然后为学习者提供交流活动来应用他们的理解。如果研究为这个想法提供了证据,那么可以在图 13.1中添加另一个名为“认知语言学教学”的圆圈。目前,SLA 研究人员和 L2 教师都流行的另一种想法是基于任务的语言教学,我们将在下面详细讨论。
Advances in SLA research and linguistic theory have influenced how languages are thought to be learned and taught. Current SLA research suggests that in selecting a method, teachers also need to consider their learners’ backgrounds and the context and institutional constraints within which they are working, as well as their own experience and intuitions about what does and does not work for their learners in the L2 classroom. SLA theory should not dictate what happens in the classroom, but it can provide language teachers with information about classroom possibilities and ideas that they can evaluate for their own adaptation. For example, ideas about how to teach prepositions are currently emerging from cognitive linguistics, which suggests that the ideal instructional strategy would be to explain from a cognitive linguistic standpoint how prepositions might be related to each other in spatial terms, and then to provide learners with communicative activities to apply their understanding. If research provides evidence for this idea, then another circle entitled “Cognitive Linguistics Instruction” can be added to Figure 13.1. Another idea that is currently popular with SLA researchers and L2 teachers alike is task-based language teaching, which we will discuss in more detail below.
任务型语言教学以互动式第二语言学习方法为基础,正如我们前面所看到的,该方法认为当语言学习者协商可理解的输入、接收反馈并修改其输出时,第二语言习得就会得到促进。任务型语言教学使用真实的现实世界交流活动,让学习者相互互动以解决语言问题并实现既定目标。这些任务侧重于意义和现实世界交流,但同时鼓励学习者注意导致理解或生成问题的语言形式。因此,这种方法与传统的语言教学方法形成鲜明对比,在传统的语言教学方法中,教师明确地将学习者的注意力吸引到语言的形式方面(如上文所讨论的语法翻译方法)。
Task-based language teaching is grounded in the interactionist approach to second language learning, which as we saw earlier, suggests that L2 acquisition is facilitated when language learners negotiate for comprehensible input, receive feedback, and modify their output. Task-based language teaching uses authentic, real-world communicative activities that allow learners to interact with each other to resolve linguistic problems and achieve defined goals. These tasks focus on meaning and real-world communication, but at the same time encourage learners to pay attention to linguistic forms that cause comprehension or production problems. The approach thus contrasts with traditional methods of language teaching in which the teacher explicitly draws the learners’ attention to formal aspects of the language (as in the Grammar Translation approach reviewed above).
当学习者在进行意义交流时遇到沟通障碍时,他们通常会对彼此的话语给予和接受反馈。这反过来又可以让他们注意到非母语的语言形式(例如发音和句法),否则这些形式在日常对话中可能会被忽视,而当学习者重新表述自己的话语以使自己被理解时,语言学习就会发生。此外,通过鼓励对话互动,任务可以让学习者练习说和听语言。这一系列事件有可能提高 L2 的产生和发展,迄今为止至少有 50 项实证研究以及 6 项综合和元分析支持这一观点。(元分析总结、比较并考虑了许多不同类型的实验和研究结果。)
When learners experience breakdowns of communication while engaged in the communication of meaning, they often give and receive feedback on each other’s utterances. This, in turn, can draw their attention to non-native uses of linguistic forms (e.g. in pronunciation and syntax) that may otherwise go unnoticed in everyday conversation, and language learning can occur as learners reformulate their utterances in order to make themselves understood. In addition, through encouraging conversational interaction, tasks allow learners to practice speaking and hearing the language. This cluster of events has the potential to improve L2 production and development and is supported by at least fifty empirical studies as well as six syntheses and meta-analyses so far. (A meta-analysis summarizes, compares, and takes into account a number of different types of experiments and research findings.)
更仔细地研究语言教学任务的概念,我们可以问,学习者在实现既定目标的同时,共同解决语言问题意味着什么。任务可以涉及各种活动,例如得出一个正确的解决方案、达成群体共识,甚至创建图片或第二语言文本。至关重要的是,学习者必须使用目标语言才能完成任务,而且通常特定的语言形式对于成功完成任务是必不可少的。例如,在图画故事拼图任务中,学习者两人一组;每个学习者收到一半图画故事,学习者需要通过相互描述他们的图片来拼凑故事。由于他们不能互相展示他们的图片,因此学习者成功完成任务的唯一方法是通过使用语言相互交流。
Looking more closely at the idea of a language teaching task, we can ask what it means for learners to interact together in resolving a linguistic problem while achieving a defined goal. Tasks can involve various activities, such as arriving at a single, correct solution, arriving at a group consensus, or even creating a picture or a second language text. Crucially, the learners must use the target language in order to complete the task, and oftentimes particular linguistic forms are necessary for successful task completion. For example, in picture story jigsaw tasks, learners work in pairs; each learner receives one half of a picture story, and the learners are required to put the story together by describing their pictures to each other. Since they cannot show each other their pictures, the only way for the learners to complete the task successfully is through communicating with each other using language.
在对不同类型的任务进行分类时,有必要指出它们在多个维度上有所不同,其中包括:
In classifying different types of tasks, it is useful to point out that they vary along a number of dimensions, including:
在越来越多的人认为任务型学习可以促进第二语言习得的情况下,研究人员目前正在研究哪些类型的任务最有效以及在什么条件下最有效。这应该是这样的:最终,教学和研究之间的关系应该是双向的,研究指导教学实践,教学指导研究议程。
Amidst a growing consensus that task-based learning can facilitate second language acquisition, researchers are currently investigating which types of tasks are the most effective and under what conditions. This is as it should be: ultimately, the relationship between teaching and research should be a two-way street, with research informing teaching practice and teaching informing research agendas.
第二语言习得是一个广泛、复杂、动态且令人兴奋的研究领域,与现实世界息息相关。出于非常实际的原因,许多教师和学生想知道为什么每个人的学习方式不同,以及如何有效地教授和学习语言。许多问题也更具理论性,与大脑和语言的工作原理有关。尽管在过去四十年中取得了重大进展,但仍有许多问题有待发现。SLA 是一个相对年轻的领域,许多领域都适合进行有根据且可能有益的研究。
Second language acquisition is a broad, complex, dynamic, and exciting field of inquiry that is relevant to real-world concerns. For very practical reasons, many instructors and students wonder about the issues of why individuals learn differently and how they can teach and learn languages efficiently. Many questions are also more theoretical in nature, related to how the brain and language work. Despite significant advances over the past forty years, there is much that remains to be uncovered. SLA is a relatively young field, and many areas are ripe for well-founded and potentially rewarding research.
SLA 研究人员有许多可用的见解来源,可以从中为语言学习研究提供理论基础。本章介绍了一些关于语言学习方式的最突出的理论和假设,包括借鉴行为主义心理学的早期思想以及互动主义者、社会文化主义者和频率研究人员提出的最新观点。在这些不同范式中工作的研究人员拥有各种方法工具 - 包括自然学习序列研究、使用重铸的互动分析、学习者之间合作中学习如何展开的社会文化研究、使用可接受性判断测试的 UG 研究、利用联结主义模型的频率研究以及使用调查数据的动机研究。一个重要的知识来源 - 理论和实践 - 在于学习者之间的个体差异,这些差异已被发现在 SLA 中发挥作用:学习者的 L1、年龄、性别、工作记忆、动机的不同方面以及学习环境。注意力、发展序列和化石等认知因素也在 SLA 中发挥重要作用。
SLA researchers have a number of available sources of insight from which to draw theoretical foundations for studies of language learning. This chapter introduced some of the most prominent theories and hypotheses about how languages are learned, including early ideas drawing on behaviorist psychology as well as the more recent viewpoints put forward by interactionists, socioculturalists, and frequency researchers. Researchers operating in these various paradigms have a variety of methodological tools – including studies of natural learning sequences, analyses of interaction employing recasts, sociocultural studies of how learning unfolds in learner–learner collaboration, UG studies using acceptability judgment tests, frequency-based studies making use of connectionist modeling, and studies of motivation using survey data. An important source of knowledge – theoretical and practical – lies in the individual differences between learners that have been found to play a role in SLA: learners’ L1s, age, gender, working memory, different aspects of motivation, and the learning context. Cognitive factors such as attention, developmental sequences, and fossilization also play important roles in SLA.
最后,本章介绍了一些语言教学方法,以及它们与 SLA 理论的联系。语法翻译直接法、听说法、社区语言学习法、沉默法、自然法和交际语言教学法都代表了第二语言教学领域的重要趋势,而当前采用的任务型语言教学法以互动研究为基础,可以看作是弥合理论与实践之间的差距。这种相互影响,以及二语习得研究人员所掌握的各种方法、假设和跨学科见解,使二语习得成为一个令人着迷的研究领域,在推动二语习得综合理论方面前景光明。
Finally, this chapter introduced a number of language teaching methodologies, and their connections to SLA theory. Grammar Translation, the Direct Method, Audiolingualism, Community Language Learning, the Silent Way, the Natural Approach, and Communicative Language Teaching all represent significant trends in the second language teaching field, and the current use of Task-based Language Teaching, with its grounding in interactionist research, can be seen as bridging the gap between theory and practice. This mutual influence – along with the variety of approaches, hypotheses, and interdisciplinary insights that SLA researchers have at their disposal – makes SLA a fascinating field of inquiry with a promising outlook in the drive towards a comprehensive theory of second language acquisition.
检查以下学习者和其母语伙伴之间的对话摘录。确定互动的以下元素:(a) 澄清请求,(b) 重述,以及 (c) 修改后的输出。修改后的输出是否更符合目标?请参阅本章中的 示例(1) –(3) 以获取类似数据。您是否在此对话中找到了 (d) 脚手架的证据?
Examine the following extracts of conversation between a learner and her native-speaker partner. Identify the following elements of the interaction: (a) a clarification request, (b) a recast, and (c) modified output. Is the modified output more or less targetlike? Refer to examples (1)–(3) in this chapter for similar data. Do you find any evidence of (d) scaffolding in this conversation?
NS:植物上方有一副老花镜。NNS:什么?NS:戴眼镜、老花镜看报纸吗?NNS:格拉西?NS:如果你看不清楚,就戴上它们来看。老花镜。NNS:啊啊啊眼镜眼镜阅读你说老花镜。NS:是的。(摘自 Mackey 1999:558–559)
NS: There’s there’s a a pair of reading glasses above the plant.NNS: A what?NS: Glasses, reading glasses to see the newspaper?NNS: Glassi?NS: You wear them to see with, if you can’t see. Reading glasses.NNS: Ahh ahh glasses glasses to read you say reading glasses.NS: Yeah.(From Mackey 1999: 558–559)
NNS:不亲身尝试,怎知真相。NS:我们只有亲自尝试过才知道真相。NNS:对的。NNS 回忆:嗯,我觉得我说的话语法不正确。但是……嗯……我不知道错在哪里。(摘自 Kim 和 Han 2007:283)
NNS: We don’t know the truth until we tried it itself.NS: We don’t know the truth until we have tried it ourselves.NNS: Right.NNS RECALL: Well, I thought what I said was grammatically incorrect. But … well … I didn’t know where was wrong.(From Kim and Han 2007: 283)
请查看第 455 页提供的以下可接受性判断测试示例。除了标记您自己的答案外,还请两位非英语母语人士参加测试。他们的答案是否一致?他们的答案与您的答案是否相符?考虑如何修改此测试以更深入地了解学习者的语言。例如,您可以询问他们对自己的答案有多自信。
Take a look at the following acceptability judgment test that was provided as an example on p. 455. In addition to marking your own answers, ask two non-native speakers of English to take the test as well. Do their answers agree with each other? Do their answers match yours? Consider how you might modify this test to gain more insight into the learners’ language. For example, you could ask them how confident they are in their answers.
1 2 3 4 5 站在那里的那个男孩高兴吗? 我读了一本我的教授推荐过的风格的书。 昨天我见到了一个女孩,我忘记她的名字了。 这是一本我讨厌其书名的书。 你买了多少本书?
1 2 3 4 5 Is the boy who standing over there is happy? I read a book of which my professor had recommended the style. Yesterday I saw a girl of whom I have forgotten the name. This is a book of which I hate the title. How many did you buy of the books?
记下本章讨论的六种个体学习者差异。利用您自己最近的第二语言学习或教学经验,解释其中两种个体差异可能如何影响您的经验。
Make a note of the six individual learner differences discussed in this chapter. Using a recent second language learning or teaching experience of your own, explain how two of these individual differences may have influenced your experience.
阅读框 13.7,了解语言学习中的性别差异。试着回想一下最近的一次男女混合学习经历,并评论一下性别如何影响这种互动。你能想到男女对话风格之间的其他差异,这些差异可能会影响男女混合配对中的语言学习吗?请参阅第 10 章中有关语言和性别的部分,以更深入地了解性别和对话。文化和对不同性别的文化期望如何影响男女混合互动中的学习?
Read Box 13.7 on gender differences in language learning. Try and think of a recent mixed-gender learning experience and comment on how gender could have affected the interaction. Can you think of other differences between men and women’s conversational styles that may affect language learning in mixed-gender pairings? Take a look at the section on language and gender in Chapter 10 for a closer look at gender and conversation. How might culture and cultural expectations for different genders affect learning in mixed-gender interactions?
第二语言学习者的学习动机似乎受到群体动态、学习环境和课堂伙伴等因素的影响。在 L2 课堂中,研究表明,教师可以通过利用各种具有挑战性的教学活动来帮助学习者集中注意力并参与教学内容。请描述一个您认为可以对工具性动机产生积极影响的课堂语言教学活动的例子,并解释原因。
Second language learners’ motivation appears to be influenced by group dynamics, the learning environment, and one’s classroom partners, among other things. In L2 classrooms, research suggests that teachers can help learners to stay focused and engaged with instructional content by making use of varied and challenging instructional activities. Describe an example of a classroom language teaching activity that you believe could positively influence instrumental motivation and explain why.
在下表中,根据框 13.8中的 Pienemann-Johnston 序列将第二语言学习者提出的问题分配到不同的发展阶段。
In the table below, assign the questions asked by second language learners to developmental stages based on the Pienemann–Johnston sequence from Box 13.8.
阶段 问题 袋子里有啥? 你沒去过日本嗎? 你的朋友住在哪里? 这个房间里有电脑吗? 你的笔记本是蓝色的吗?
Stage Question What is in the bag? Haven’t you been to Japan? Where does your friend live? Does in this room there is computer? Your notebook is blue?
请一位正在学习英语作为第二语言的同学来采访你。记录他或她的问题,看看它们在 Pienemann–Johnston 序列中的位置。
Ask a fellow student who is learning English as a second language to interview you. Record his or her questions and see where they fit in the Pienemann–Johnston sequence.
假设您是一名语言教师,班上有 15 名初级英语学习者,他们都是来自不同 L1 背景的大学生。您在 50 分钟的课堂上有两个目标:(a) 教授第三人称单数s(她走路,他唱歌),(b) 教授一些关于美国文化的知识,特别是即将到来的感恩节假期。设计符合下表中列出的三种方法的活动。每项活动都应在基于文化的背景下提供语法教学,如下面提供的交际语言教学示例所示。将您的教学活动与同学设计的教学活动进行比较。
Assume you are a language teacher with a class of fifteen beginning-level English learners who are college students from a range of L1 backgrounds. You have two aims for a 50-minute class: (a) to teach third-person singular s (She walks, he sings), and (b) to teach the class something about American culture, specifically, the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Design activities that fit with three of the methods presented in the table below. Each activity should provide grammar teaching within a culture-based context, as in the example provided below for Communicative Language Teaching. Compare your teaching activities with those designed by your classmates.
方法 任务活动 语言形式 感恩节的文化内容 交际语言教学 图片排序活动,每个学习者拿着一半的图片,他们必须通过互相解释史密斯一家在周三和周四做什么来确定顺序 3SG s:购物、烹饪、布置、雕刻、吃饭、谈话、观看 家庭用餐中的典型元素、典型的餐前和餐后活动 语法 翻译 直接法 听说法 静默之路 社区语言学习 自然方法 任务型语言教学
Approach Task activity Linguistic form Thanksgiving cultural content Communicative Language Teaching Picture-ordering activity where each learner holds half the pictures and they have to figure out the order by explaining to each other what the Smith family are doing on Wednesday and Thursday 3SG s: shops, cooks, sets, carves, eats, talks, watches Typical elements in the family meal, typical pre- and post-meal activities Grammar Translation Direct Method Audiolingualism Silent Way Community Language Learning Natural Approach Task-based Language Teaching
让计算机理解并用人类语言进行交流这一目标长期以来一直是科幻小说中的一个梦想。近年来,随着科学家开发出能够理解和学习人类语言(包括书面和口头形式)的计算机程序,这一梦想的一部分已成为现实。这些系统还能够在不同程度上进行语言之间的翻译。这些程序使用的方法源自语言学和计算机科学,它们揭示了人类语言和数学语言中发现的模式之间的关系。这些程序可以筛选大量在线日常语言样本(称为语料库),计算特定形式在日常使用中实际出现的频率。这使得语言规则可以根据此类统计数据进行加权,程序使用这些权重来识别更可能的歧义话语语言分析。此类程序的成功还表明,人类可能会根据经验中的统计规律进行归纳学习。计算语言学家开发的实用工具可用于进行比以往更大规模的语言分析。更重要的是,这些工具可以从根本上改变我们获取和交流信息的方式。所有这些因素使得计算语言学成为一个充满智慧、令人兴奋且影响深远的研究领域。
The goal of having a computer understand and communicate in a human language has long been a dream of science fiction. In recent years part of this dream has become reality as scientists have developed computer programs that can understand and learn aspects of human languages, in both written and spoken form. These systems are also capable, to varying degrees, of translating between languages. The methods these programs use derive from both linguistics and computer science, and they reveal a relationship between the patterns found in human languages and in mathematical languages. These programs can sift through large online samples of everyday language (called corpora), counting how often particular forms actually occur in everyday use. This allows linguistic rules to be weighted based on such statistics, and these weights are used by the programs to identify more likely linguistic analyses of ambiguous utterances. The success of such programs also suggests that humans might learn by induction based on statistical regularities in their experience. The practical tools developed by computational linguists can be used to carry out linguistic analyses on a larger scale than ever before. Even more significantly, these tools can radically change the way we acquire and communicate information. All these factors make computational linguistics an intellectually lively, exciting, and influential area of study.
本章的目标是:
The goals of this chapter are to:
计算机“做”语言学的想法乍一看可能看起来很奇怪,因为我们传统上主要将语言与人类联系在一起,但本章将表明,在计算语言学框架内工作实际上是一种非常自然的理解语言的方式。
The idea of computers “doing” linguistics might at first seem strange, since we have traditionally associated language primarily with humans, but this chapter will show that working within the framework of computational linguistics is actually a very natural way to understand language.
首先,定义:计算语言学旨在开发代理展现各种语言行为所需的计算机器。我们所说的“代理”既指人类,也指计算机程序等人工代理。我们所说的“机器”既指计算机程序,也指其中包含的语言知识。
First, a definition: computational linguistics seeks to develop the computational machinery needed for an agent to exhibit various forms of linguistic behavior. By “agent,” we mean both human beings and artificial agents such as computer programs. By “machinery,” we mean computer programs as well as the linguistic knowledge that they contain.
计算机用人类语言交流或解释人类语言意味着什么?毕竟,计算机没有内在的智能。它们的语言能力源自为它们编写的程序。因此,计算语言学涉及设计和开发程序来执行语言任务。这些程序主要基于计算机科学家开发的方法,但它们使用语言学家开发的语言知识。因此,计算语言学融合了语言学和计算机科学的思想。
What does it mean for a computer to communicate in or interpret a human language? After all, computers have no inherent intelligence. Their linguistic capabilities derive from programs that are written for them. Computational linguistics therefore involves designing and developing programs to carry out linguistic tasks. These programs are based mainly on methods developed by computer scientists, but they use linguistic knowledge developed by linguists. So computational linguistics integrates ideas from linguistics and computer science.
这两个领域之间的联系绝非偶然。语言涉及复杂的符号系统,而计算机是非常快速的机械符号处理器。语言处理和计算之间、语言模式的复杂性和计算数学模型的复杂性之间存在着天然的联系。这些联系提出了关于人类如何表达和处理语言知识的重要问题。
The connection between these two fields is hardly an accident. Language involves complex symbol systems, and computers are very fast mechanical symbol-processors. There are natural connections between linguistic processing and computation, between the complexity of linguistic patterns and the complexity of mathematical models of computation. These connections raise important questions about how human beings represent and process linguistic knowledge.
自 20 世纪 90 年代以来,计算机的速度稳步提高,并提供了越来越多的在线语言数据(网络就是一个典型的例子)。基于对此类数据的统计分析的方法大大提高了系统执行理解句子句法结构等任务的准确性。此类方法的成功引发了人们对人类大脑如何表示和处理语言的问题,尤其是统计学在语言理解中的作用。它还表明,人类可以通过使用统计规律进行归纳,从经验中学习。
Since the 1990s, computers have become steadily faster and have provided access to increasing quantities of online linguistic data (the Web being a prime example). Methods based on statistical analyses of such data have dramatically improved the accuracy with which systems carry out tasks like understanding the syntactic structure of a sentence. The success of such methods has raised questions about how language is represented and processed by the human mind, and particularly about the role of statistics in language understanding. It also suggests that humans might learn from experience by means of induction using statistical regularities.
除了推动语言理论的发展,计算语言学的应用还产生了可以极大地造福社会的实用工具。大多数使用计算机的人都熟悉拼写和语法检查器等工具,以及像 Google 这样的网络搜索引擎,却没有意识到它们涉及计算语言学的各个方面。以下是自然语言处理 (NLP) 系统可以执行的一些其他活动:
In addition to pushing the envelope of linguistic theory, applications of computational linguistics have yielded practical tools that can benefit society tremendously. Most people who use computers are familiar with tools such as spelling and grammar checkers, as well as Web search engines such as Google, without realizing that they involve aspects of computational linguistics. Here are some other activities that natural language processing (NLP) systems can do:
在以下章节中,我们将研究计算语言学方法在一系列语言现象中的应用,说明问题和方法。我们从单词开始,重点介绍如何使用计算机分析单词的内部结构或形态。然后,我们转到句子的语法结构,讨论句法处理。接下来,我们讨论语义处理——即使用计算机从句子中提取含义。然后,我们简要概述计算机自动生成文本,然后讨论语言学家在计算语言学系统开发中的作用、分类(全有或全无)规则与概率规则的问题,以及计算语言学工具使语言数据探索成为可能的有趣示例。然后,我们介绍语音识别和合成以及机器翻译等各种应用,最后评估该领域面临的主要挑战。
In the following sections, we will examine the application of computational linguistics methods to a range of linguistic phenomena, illustrating the problems and approaches. We begin with words, focusing on the use of computers to analyze the internal structure, or morphology, of words. We then move on to the grammatical structure of sentences, discussing syntactic processing. Next, we discuss semantic processing – that is, using computers to extract meaning from sentences. We then briefly overview the automatic generation of text by computers, before discussing the role of linguists in computational linguistics system development, the issue of categorical (all-or-nothing) rules versus probabilistic rules, and examples of interesting explorations of linguistic data that computational linguistic tools make possible. We then introduce various applications like speech recognition and synthesis and machine translation, before concluding with an assessment of the major challenges facing the field.
形态学是研究词语结构的学科。自动形态分析器的任务是提取语言中的一个单词,并将其分解为词干形式以及可能附加在该词干上的任何词缀。在处理诸如Husain reads well这样的句子时,分析器应该能够识别出Husain是专有名词,reads是动词read ( read + s )的第三人称单数现在时形式,以及well是副词或单数名词。
Morphology is the study of the structure of words. The task of an automatic morphological analyzer is to take a word in a language and break it down into its stem form along with any affixes that it may have attached to that stem. In processing a sentence such as Husain reads well, the analyzer should be able to identify Husain as a proper name, reads as the third-person singular present form of the verb read (read + s), and well as either an adverb or a singular noun.
请注意,形态分析器将无法识别单词的句法角色——例如,Husain是reads的主语。这是句法分析程序的后续任务。计算语言学的一个重要策略是将语言视为模块化,或由不同的子系统组成,并为不同的子系统开发和集成模块。正如我们在前面的章节中看到的,这也类似于语言学家的人类语言理论。
Notice that the morphological analyzer will not be able to identify the syntactic roles of words – for example, that Husain is the subject of reads. This is the subsequent task of a syntactic parsing program. An important strategy in computational linguistics is to treat language as modular, or composed of different subsystems, and to develop and integrate modules for different subsystems. As we’ve seen in previous chapters, this is similar to linguists’ theories of human language as well.
通常,形态分析的第一步是识别单独的单词,这个过程称为标记化。这在英语等语言中相当简单,因为单词以空格和标点符号分隔,句子以大写字母开头。但即使在英语中,含糊不清的标点符号也会导致标记问题。例如,句号可能是缩写的一部分(英国产品)或可能表示句子末尾的标点符号;标记器需要能够自动区分这些。
Usually, the first step in morphological analysis is to identify separate words, a process called tokenization. This can be fairly simple in languages like English, where words are delimited by spaces and punctuation characters, and where sentences start with capital letters. But even in English, ambiguous punctuation can cause tokenization problems. For example, periods may be part of an abbreviation (U.K. products) or may indicate sentence-final punctuation; a tokenizer needs to be able to automatically distinguish these.
在正字法或书写形式不以空格或标点符号标记单词边界的语言中,标记化是一个更具挑战性的问题。在某些语言中,单词的概念可能并不明确。请考虑以下包含中文的日语句子汉字和日语平假名字符:
In languages where the orthography, or written form, doesn’t mark word boundaries with spaces or punctuation, tokenization is a more challenging problem. In some of these languages, the notion of what a word is may not be clear. Consider the following Japanese sentence containing Chinese kanji and Japanese hiragana characters:
| (1) |
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尤其是汉字,有一种真正的对于某些常见的多字词如何进行分割存在歧义,并且不同的形态分析器在分割决策上有时会有所不同。
With Chinese kanji characters, in particular, there is a genuine ambiguity as to how certain common multi-character words are to be segmented, and different morphological analyzers sometimes differ in their segmentation decisions.
自动形态分析器获取一个单词并将其分解为组成词素(词干和词缀)。有时,人们会使用简单的词干提取算法来代替完整的形态分析,该算法会去掉后缀以得出词干形式。词干提取算法用于搜索引擎等应用程序,当输入搜索词loved时,它们会非常高兴地找到love,但在需要进行深入的句法和语义分析的情况下,该算法就没那么有用了。
An automatic morphological analyzer takes a word and breaks it down into its component morphemes (stems and affixes). Sometimes, instead of a full morphological analysis, a simple stemming algorithm is used which strips off suffixes to arrive at a stem form. Stemming is used in applications like search engines, which are perfectly happy to find love when given the search word loved, but it is less useful in situations where in-depth syntactic and semantic analyses are needed.
另一种策略是使用完全屈折的词典,它(理想情况下)包括该语言中每个单词的所有可能的词缀形式。分析器只需在列表中查找单词即可。这样的列表几乎不可避免地不完整,并且它们可能变得太大,计算机无法处理。例如,泰米尔语每个动词有大约 2,000 个屈折形式,而给定土耳其语词干(Hankamer 1989 )的屈折形式数量可能达到数百万!处理此类语言时,需要真正的形态分析和消歧,而不是像词干提取算法或完全屈折的词典这样的捷径。
Another strategy is to use a fully inflected lexicon, which (ideally) includes all the possible affixed forms of every word in the language. The analyzer simply looks up the word in the list. Such lists are almost inevitably incomplete, and they can become too large and unwieldy for computers to handle. For example, Tamil has about 2,000 inflected forms per verb, while the number of inflected forms for a given Turkish stem (Hankamer 1989) may be in the millions! Real morphological analysis and disambiguation – rather than shortcuts like stemming algorithms or fully inflected lexicons – are necessary when dealing with such languages.
语言学习者熟悉教科书,这些教科书会教授一条规则(目标语言中的常规模式,如“要构成英语动词的过去时,请添加 - ed ”),然后教授该规则的所有“例外”(例如,不规则动词,如 bring和come)。完整形态分析的一种方法是仅在词典中存储例外形式,并使用形态规则处理常规模式。应用形态规则的典型策略是模式-动作方法。计算机程序识别与规则模式匹配的单词;然后记录该单词的形态成分,如规则动作所指定。
Language learners are familiar with textbooks that teach a rule (a regular pattern in the target language like “To form the past tense of a verb in English, add -ed”) and then teach all the “exceptions” to the rule (for example, irregular verbs like bring and come). One approach to a full morphological analysis is to store only exceptional forms in the lexicon, and handle the regular patterns with morphological rules. A typical strategy for applying morphological rules is the pattern–action approach. A computer program identifies words that match the rule’s pattern; it then records that word’s morphological components, as specified by the rule’s action.
下面是一个有例外的模式—动作形态规则的例子(来自 Minnen、Carroll 和 Pearce 的系统,2001):
Here is an example of a pattern–action morphological rule with an exception (from the system of Minnen, Carroll, and Pearce 2001):
| (2) |
{V|C} + {C} ied => 字符串变换 (3, y + ed ) {V|C}+{C}ied = > string-transform (3, y + ed) boogied => 字符串变换(1,+ ed) boogied = > string-transform (1, + ed) |
每条规则的左侧都有一个模式(也称为“正则表达式”),右侧有一个动作。第一条规则规定,如果一个单词由一个或多个字母字符 {元音 V 或辅音 C 中的字符} 后跟一个辅音字符 {集合 C 中的字符} 以及ied组成,则通过删除最后三个字符 ( ied ) 并将其替换为y后跟 + ed来转换该单词。因此,cried被分析为由词素cry后跟过去词素 + ed组成的形式:cried = cry + ed。
Each rule has a pattern on the left-hand side (also called a “regular expression”), and an action on the right. The first rule says that a word made up of one or more alphabetic characters {in the set of vowels V or consonants C} followed by a consonant character {in the set C} and followed by ied is transformed by removing the last three characters (ied), and replacing them with y followed by +ed. Thus, cried is analyzed as a form consisting of the morpheme cry followed by the past morpheme + ed: cried = cry + ed.
现在,如果我们将此规则应用于boogied(其词干为boogie),它将产生错误的分析:boogied = boogy + ed。为了解决此类例外情况,一般规则下方列出了更具体的规则(如(2)中的第二条规则)。作为一种处理策略,所有规则都按顺序应用于输入词,使用成功的最后一条规则产生的分析。
Now, if we applied this rule to boogied (whose stem is boogie), it would produce an incorrect analysis: boogied = boogy + ed. To address exceptions like this, more specific rules (like the second rule in (2)) are listed below general rules. As a processing strategy, all the rules are applied in order to the input word, using the analysis produced by the last rule which succeeds.
自动形态合成器的任务是生成一个单词,给定词干形式和词缀。(2)中所示的规则用于分析;合成需要不同的规则。例如,要从cry和 + ed生成crying,我们可以使用模式 {V|C} + {C} y + ed => string-transform (4, ied )。
The task of an automatic morphological synthesizer is to produce a word, given the stem form along with the affixes. The rules shown in (2) are used for analysis; different rules are required for synthesis. For example, to produce cried from cry and + ed, we could use the pattern {V|C}+{C}y + ed = > string-transform (4, ied).
尽管分析和综合显然是相关的,但为分析和综合编写单独的规则可能会很尴尬。为每个方向制定单独的规则似乎也不自然;至少我们人类必须利用相同的语言知识,无论是理解还是创造语言。由于分析中调用“字符串变换”等操作的方式与综合中调用的方式不同,因此解决这个问题的一种方法是删除形态规则中对此类处理策略的任何引用。结果是一种声明性的表示,即不涉及程序或处理策略。计算语言学家喜欢对语言信息进行声明性表示,因为这些表示清楚地将语言数据与对数据进行操作的处理策略(计算机程序)分开。比(2)更具声明性的表示可用于分析和综合,它将指定表面形式(例如cry)和底层形式(例如cry + ed )之间的映射。 (3a)中显示了这种映射的一个示例。
Having separate rules written for analysis and synthesis, even though they are clearly related, can be awkward. Having separate rules for each direction also seems unnatural; we humans, at least, must tap into the same linguistic knowledge whether we are understanding or producing language. Since operations like “string-transform” are invoked in a different way in analysis compared to synthesis, one way to address this is to remove any references to such processing strategies within morphological rules. The result is a representation that is declarative, i.e. that doesn’t make reference to procedures or processing strategies. Computational linguists like to have declarative representations of linguistic information, because these representations clearly separate the linguistic data from the processing strategies (computer programs) that operate on the data. A more declarative representation than (2), which could be used in both analysis and synthesis, would specify a mapping between surface forms (e.g. cried) and the underlying forms (e.g. cry + ed). An example of such a mapping is shown in (3a).
| (3) |
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(3a)表示,作为表面形式中第一个符号的c映射到作为底层形式中第一个符号的c ,作为表面形式中的第二个符号的r映射到作为底层形式中的第二个符号的r,依此类推,最后,表面形式中的d映射到底层形式中的ed。映射不假设任何有关处理方向的信息,我们将会看到,它既可用于分析,也可用于综合。
(3a) states that a c as the first symbol in the surface form maps to a c as the first symbol in the underlying form, that an r as the second symbol in the surface form maps to an r as the second symbol in the underlying form, and so forth, with finally the d in the surface form mapping to ed in the underlying form. The mapping doesn’t assume anything about the direction of processing and, as we shall see, can be used for both analysis and synthesis.
为了处理输入并产生输出, (3a)中表示的映射被一个称为有限状态换能器。如(3b)所示。
To process inputs and produce outputs, the mappings expressed in (3a) are used by a program called a finite-state transducer. This is shown in (3b).
| (3) |
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让我们看一下计算机使用(3b)中的换能器表示分析cry的示例。它从初始“状态”开始(在(3b)中标记为“1” )。当在其输入中看到c(箭头上方)时,换能器打印c作为其输出(箭头下方),并前进到状态 2。接下来,当在其输入中看到r时,它打印r作为其输出,并前进到状态 3。然后,当在其输入中看到i时,它打印y在其输出中,前进到状态 4。当在其输入中看到e 时,它打印“+”,前进到状态 5。最后,当在其输入中看到“ d ”时,它打印ed在其输出中,从而达到最终状态(标记为●)。因此,给定cry作为输入,换能器产生cry + ed作为输出。由于换能器是双向的,因此它们既可用于形态分析,也可用于形态合成。在形态合成中,首先以cry + ed作为输入,然后转换器产生cry作为输出。
Let’s walk through the example of the computer analyzing cried using the transducer representation in (3b). It starts in the initial “state” (labeled “1” in (3b)). On seeing c in its input (above the arrow), the transducer prints c as its output (below the arrow), and advances to state 2. Next, on seeing r in its input, it prints r as its output, and advances to state 3. Then, on seeing i in its input, it prints y in its output, advancing to state 4. On seeing e in its input, it prints “+” in its output, advancing to state 5. Finally, on seeing “d” in its input, it prints ed in its output, and thus reaches the final state (labeled ●). Thus, given cried as input, the transducer yields cry + ed as output. Since transducers are bidirectional, they can be used in both morphological analysis and synthesis. In morphological synthesis, starting with cry + ed as the input, the transducer yields cried as the output.
(3b)中的有限状态转换器之所以被称为“有限状态”,是因为它只使用有限数量的状态(在本例中为六个),并且在开始任何处理之前就预先确定了状态数量。(相比之下,非有限状态的设备在处理输入时可能需要增加内存。)有限状态转换器的一个优点是它们可以以各种方式串联在一起。此属性允许非常复杂的有限状态设备以模块化方式从更简单的“构建块”有限状态设备组装而成,就像将乐高积木拼在一起以创建复杂结构一样。形态分析中使用的有限状态方法也广泛应用于音系学。
The finite-state transducer in (3b) is called “finite-state” because it uses just a finite number of states (six, in this case), and the number of states is predetermined before it starts any processing. (A device which is not finite-state, by contrast, may require its memory to grow as it processes its input.) One nice property of finite-state transducers is that they can be strung together in various ways. This property allows very complex finite-state devices to be assembled in a modular fashion from simpler “building block” finite-state devices, rather like Lego blocks are put together to create a complex structure. Finite-state methods used in morphological analysis are widely used in phonology as well.
现在,您应该了解计算机程序如何分析和合成语言中的单词,即使是具有丰富屈折形态的语言。通过解决练习 14.1来测试您的理解!
By now, you should understand how computer programs can analyze and synthesize words in a language, even one with a rich inflectional morphology. Test your understanding by solving Exercise 14.1!
在本节中,我们将介绍如何让计算机描述句子的语法结构。给定一组描述句子元素如何组合在一起的语言规则(语法),一个称为句法分析器的计算机程序将尝试找到句子的最佳语法分析。如果句子有歧义(即,如果它有多个可能的语法结构),句法分析器将产生所有分析。考虑这个短句:
In this section, we will introduce the problem of trying to get a computer to characterize the grammatical structure of a sentence. Given a set of linguistic rules that describe how elements of a sentence can be put together (a grammar), a computer program called a syntactic parser will try to find the best grammatical analysis of a sentence. If the sentence is ambiguous (that is, if it has more than one possible grammatical structure), the syntactic parser will produce all analyses. Consider this short sentence:
| (4) |
我会钓鱼。 I can fish. |
这句话的意思可能是“我会钓鱼”,也可能是“我经常把鱼放进罐头里”。第一种读法中,can是情态助动词;第二种读法中,can是主动词。这两种不同的含义对应着不同的句法结构。
This sentence could mean that I know how to fish, or that I habitually put fish in cans. In the first reading, can is a modal auxiliary verb; in the second sentence, can is the main verb. These two different meanings correspond to distinct syntactic structures.
我们可以用语法来描述句子的结构,比如(4) ,语法表现为一套规则。这些规则称为短语结构规则,将句子分解为由句法短语或单词组成的组成部分。这种语法如(5)所示。
We can describe the structure of sentences like (4) in terms of a grammar, expressed as a system of rules. These rules, called phrase structure rules, break up a sentence into its constituent parts, consisting of syntactic phrases or words. Such a grammar is shown in (5).
| (5) |
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我们将这种部分简化的语法称为“玩具”语法,因为它“处理”的只是语言的一小部分,有点笨拙。为了提高处理速度,计算语言学家经常使用简化语法,只表示特定应用所需的句法结构元素。
We will call this kind of partial, simplified grammar a “toy” grammar, since it “handles,” somewhat awkwardly, only a tiny fragment of the language. To improve processing speed, computational linguists often use simplified grammars, representing only those elements of syntactic structure that are required for a particular application.
这个玩具语法识别四种不同类型的 VP(Aux V、V NP、V 和 Aux V NP)和三种 NP(DN、N 和代词)。左栏箭头左侧的类别(S、NP 和 VP)是结构类别;它们可以扩展为其他类别,但不能直接扩展为单词。因此,这里的句子(S)由名词短语和动词短语组成。另一种说法是,句子(S)可以重写为或扩展为名词短语和动词短语。右栏箭头左侧的类别是词汇类别(或词性);它们映射到特定的单词。箭头左侧的所有类别(在任一列中)都称为“非终结符”,因为它们重写为其他类别或单词。而单词则不会重写为任何东西,因此被称为“终结符”。
This toy grammar recognizes four different kinds of VPs (Aux V, V NP, V, and Aux V NP) and three kinds of NPs (D N, N, and Pronoun). The categories to the left of the arrow in the left-hand column (S, NP, and VP) are structural categories; they can be expanded into other categories, but not directly into words. So here a sentence (S) is made up of a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase. Another way to put this is that a sentence (S) can be rewritten as, or expanded into, a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase. The categories to the left of the arrow in the right-hand column are lexical categories (or parts of speech); they map to particular words. All the categories to the left of the arrow (in either column) are called “nonterminals,” since they rewrite to other categories or words. Words, in turn, don’t rewrite to anything, and are therefore called “terminals.”
我们的玩具语法仅涵盖三个不同的动词、一个助动词、一个限定词、两个名词和一个代词,但即便如此,它也能描述各种各样的句子。以这种格式编写的语法称为上下文无关语法。
Our toy grammar covers only three different verbs, one auxiliary verb, one determiner, two nouns, and one pronoun, but even so it can describe quite a variety of sentences. Grammars written in this format are called context-free grammers.
符号 含义
Symbol Meaning
助动词(例如“can”)
Auxiliary (e.g. ‘can’)
限定词(例如 'the')
Determiner (e.g. ‘the’)
名词
Noun
名词短语
Noun Phrase
句子
Sentence
动词
Verb
动词短语
Verb Phrase
(右箭头)“由……组成”
(right arrow) “is made up of”
这个玩具语法代表了一组具有相似句法结构的句子的结构——在本例中,是“NP VP”形式的陈述句。真正的语法需要扩展以添加形容词和副词等词类,并处理疑问句、祈使句和关系从句等句法结构。它还需要处理主谓结构等内容同意,例如,他罐装金枪鱼,等等。
This toy grammar represents the structure of a set of sentences which have a similar syntactic structure – in this case, declarative sentences of the form “NP VP.” A real grammar would need to be extended to add parts of speech like adjectives and adverbs, and to handle syntactic structures like questions, imperatives, and relative clauses. It also would need to handle things like subject–verb agreement, as in He cans tuna, and much more.
尽管不完整,但即使是我们的玩具语法也可以表示多种句法形式: I fish,I can dance,I can the fish,I can can fish等。只需在词典中添加更多单词( (5)的右侧栏)就可以覆盖大量句子,而不会使语法变得更加复杂。
Although incomplete, even our toy grammar can represent a variety of syntactic forms: I fish, I can dance, I can the fish, I can can fish, etc. Just adding more words to the lexicon (the right-hand column of (5)) will allow a large number of sentences to be covered, without making the grammar more complex.
现在,我们如何让计算机分析句子的句法结构,例如 我能钓鱼 (4)?执行此操作的计算机程序称为解析器。解析器接收输入的句子并生成一个或多个句法表示。如果句子在句法上无歧义,则它会产生单个表示,但如果句子存在句法歧义,则会产生多个表示歧义(例如I can fish)。表示句子的层次句法结构的一种方法称为解析树。以下是(4)的两棵解析树:解析器以I can fish作为输入,并使用(5)中的语法对其进行处理,以生成解析树(6)和(7)作为输出。
Now, how can we get a computer to analyze the syntactic structure of a sentence like I can fish (4)? A computer program which does this is called a parser. A parser takes an input sentence and produces one or more syntactic representations of it. It produces a single representation if the sentence is syntactically unambiguous, but more than one representation if there is syntactic ambiguity (as in I can fish). One way to represent the hierarchical syntactic structure of a sentence is called a parse tree. Here are the two parse trees for (4): the parser takes I can fish as input and processes it using the grammar in (5) to produce parse trees (6) and (7) as output.
| (6) |
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| (7) |
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解析器有多种类型。自上而下的解析器,正如您所预料的那样,从上而下构建解析树。给定(5)中的语法,解析树的顶部始终是“S”,因此自上而下的解析器将从 S 的规则开始,并一步一步扩展每个组成部分。
There are several types of parsers. A top-down parser, as you might expect, builds the parse trees from the top down. Given the grammar in (5), the top of the parse tree is always “S,” so a top-down parser would start with the rules for S and expand each constituent a step at a time.
以下是自上而下解析的工作原理,将(5)中的语法应用于I can fish。语法从一条规则开始,相当于“假设一个句子 (S)”。应用此规则会生成一棵小树,形式如(8a)所示。应用 S 规则 (S → NP VP),解析器会生成(8b)中的解析树。
Here is how top-down parsing works, using the grammar in (5) applied to I can fish. The grammar starts with one rule, which amounts to “Assume a sentence (S).” Applying this rule produces a small tree of the form shown in (8a). Applying the S rule (S → NP VP), the parser produces the parse tree in (8b).
解析树(8b)中有两个节点可供解析器扩展:NP 和 VP。解析器被设计为首先扩展最左侧的非终结节点(在规则的右侧)。因此,在这种情况下,解析器将选择节点 NP(在(8b)中用圆圈表示) ,并尝试扩展或进一步指定该 NP 节点包含的内容。 (5)中的语法指出了 NP 的三种可能扩展(NP → DN、NP → N、NP → Pronoun)。解析器将生成三棵可能的部分解析树,如(8c)所示。
There are two nodes in the parse tree (8b) that the parser could expand: NP and VP. The parser is designed to expand the left-most nonterminal node (on the right-hand side of the rule) first. So in this case the parser will choose the node NP, shown with a circle in (8b), and try to expand, or further specify, what that NP node contains. The grammar in (5) states three possible expansions for NP (NP → D N, NP → N, NP → Pronoun). The parser will generate three possible partial parse trees, shown in (8c).
| (8) |
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扩展(8c)中的第一棵树 (iii)是不可能的,因为根据 NP → DN 规则,第一个非终结符应该是限定词 (D),而根据语法,D 扩展为单词the ,这与输入的开头 ( I )不匹配。因此,解析器发现树 (iii) 是死胡同,并尝试下一个可能的 NP 扩展。
Expanding the first tree (iii) in (8c) will not be possible, because according to the NP → D N rule, the first nonterminal should be a determiner (D), and according to the grammar, D expands to the word the, which doesn’t match the start of the input (I). So, the parser finds that tree (iii) is a dead-end and tries the next possible expansion of NP.
(8c)中的第二棵树 (iv)也有类似的问题;NP → N 规则预测它是一个名词,但语法中仅有的名词(fish和dance)与输入句子I can fish的第一个单词I不匹配。这导致解析器检查第三个 NP 扩展规则 (NP → Pronoun)。语法指出词汇类别 Pronoun 可以扩展为 I,与输入的开头匹配,因此解析器将 Pronoun 扩展为I ,如(8d)所示。I 是一个终端类别,因此解析器在尽可能扩展 NP 节点后,转向“新的”最左边的非终端 (VP) 并使用语法对其进行扩展。
The second tree (iv) in (8c) has a similar problem; the NP → N rule predicts a noun, but the only nouns in the grammar (fish and dance) don’t match the first word of the input sentence I can fish, which is I. This leads the parser to check the third NP expansion rule (NP → Pronoun). The grammar states that the lexical category Pronoun can be expanded to I, which matches the start of the input, so the parser expands Pronoun to I, as shown in (8d). I is a terminal category, so the parser, having expanded the NP node as far as it can, turns to the “new” left-most nonterminal (VP) and uses the grammar to expand it.
这个过程持续进行,直到输入中的所有单词都被覆盖。描述这个过程需要很长时间,但计算机可以在几分之一秒内完成它!
The process continues until all the words in the input are covered. Describing the process takes a long time, but computers can run through it in a fraction of a second!
与自上而下的工作方式相反,解析器可以自下而上地进行,就像第 3 章中构建结构一样。在第一步中,每个输入词都与一个词汇类别相关联。例如, I将与代词节点相关联。然后,使用语法规则将词汇类别节点连接到其父节点,这样,例如,代词将是 NP 的子节点。自下而上的解析器可能会浪费时间构建不会导致 S 的结构,而自上而下的解析器可能会浪费时间,正如我们所见扩展与输入不匹配的结构。更高级的解析策略(如图表解析)结合了自上而下和自下而上的方法。
In contrast to working top-down, a parser could proceed bottom-up, somewhat as structures were built in Chapter 3. In the first steps, each input word is associated with a lexical category. For example, I would be associated with a Pronoun node. Then, the lexical category nodes are connected to their parent nodes using the rules of the grammar, so that, for example, Pronoun will be a child of NP. Bottom-up parsers may waste time building structures that don’t lead to an S, while top-down parsers may, as we have seen, waste time expanding structures that don’t lead to a match with the input. More advanced parsing strategies, like chart parsing, combine top-down and bottom-up approaches.
现在是时候停下来确认你已经理解了解析器如何在给定语法的情况下对语言中的句子进行句法分析。事实上,你应该能够模仿计算机自上而下解析句子的步骤。练习 14.2和14.3将进一步巩固你的理解。
This is a good time to pause and confirm that you have understood how a parser, given a grammar, can syntactically analyze a sentence in a language. In fact, you should be able to mimic the steps the computer takes in carrying out a top-down parse of a sentence. Exercises 14.2 and 14.3 will further consolidate your understanding.
正如我们所见,一个单词(如can和fish)可能有不同的词性。解析器不必考虑歧义词的所有词性,而是可以减少在解析之前,通过在解析之前运行一个称为词性标注器的程序,可以消除歧义。对于每个具有多个词性的单词,标注器都会分配最可能的词性。这是基于人类直觉得出的基于上下文的规则(例如,在 之后, fish很可能是名词)以及机器从一组已经标注了词性的例句中学习得出的规则来完成的。(有关语言学家如何帮助开发自动词性标注程序的更多信息,请参阅方框 14.3 “语言学家的角色变化”。)
As we have seen, a word (like can and fish) can have different possible parts of speech. Instead of having the parser consider all parts of speech of an ambiguous word, it is possible to reduce the ambiguity prior to parsing, by running a program called a part-of-speech tagger before parsing. To each word that has more than one part of speech, the tagger assigns the most likely part of speech. This is done based on context-based rules derived by human intuition (for example, after the, fish is likely to be a noun), as well as rules derived by machines that learn from a collection of example sentences that have been tagged already with parts of speech. (See the Box 14.3 on “The changing role of linguists” for more information about how linguists help develop automatic part-of-speech tagging programs.)
虽然词性标注可以减少由于词性引起的歧义,但它无法减少其他类型的句法歧义,比如,对于句子“天文学家用望远镜看见了这个星球”,无法确定介词短语“用望远镜”是修饰 VP“看见了这个星球”还是修饰 NP“这个星球”(人类可以轻松做出的决定!)。
While part-of-speech tagging can reduce ambiguity due to parts of speech, it cannot reduce other kinds of syntactic ambiguity, such as deciding, given the sentence The astronomer saw the planet with a telescope, whether the prepositional phrase with a telescope modifies the VP saw the planet or the NP the planet (a decision which humans can easily make!).
上下文无关语法的一个问题是它们需要很多规则。例如,如果我们想添加主谓结构一致语法,这样我们才能成功解析I dance和he dances(但不能解析he dance或I dances),我们必须创建两个 S 规则,一个将 ThirdPersonSingularNP 与 ThirdPersonSingularVP 相结合,另一个将 NonThirdPersonSingularNP 与 NonThirdPersonSingularVP 相结合。此外,我们必须为每个更具体的 NP 和 VP 类别创建单独的重写规则。而且,随着我们添加新类型的 S 来涵盖问题和祈使句,我们还必须在其中创建相应的“一致”分支。这种方法可能会产生描述性足够的语法,但它不是很优雅或高效。
One problem with context-free grammars is that they require many rules. For example, if we want to add subject–verb agreement to the grammar, so that we get a successful parse for I dance and he dances (but not he dance or I dances), we would have to create two S rules, one which combines ThirdPersonSingularNP with ThirdPersonSingularVP, and another which combines NonThirdPersonSingularNP with NonThirdPersonSingularVP. In addition, we would have to create separate rewrite rules for each of these more specific NP and VP categories. And, as we added new types of Ss to cover questions and imperatives, we would have to create corresponding “agreement” branches in them as well. This approach may yield a descriptively adequate grammar, but it is not very elegant or efficient.
相反,可以用特征来增强语法(5),例如,数和人称等一致特征,或主语和宾语等语法关系。然后,解析器必须确保 NP 和 VP 的一致特征匹配,这一过程称为统一。语言表征中表达能力增强的代价是语法速度减慢 解析过程中,由于需要携带出这个附加匹配。基于此类附加集合的语法形式的特征被称为基于统一的语法。
Instead, it is possible to augment a grammar like (5) with features – for example, agreement features like number and person, or grammatical relations like subject and object. The parser then has to ensure that the agreement features of the NP and the VP match, a process known as unification. The cost of the increased expressiveness in the linguistic representation is a slowing down of the parsing process, due to the need to carry out this additional matching. Grammar formalisms based on such additional sets of features are called unification-based grammars.
基于统一型语法,人们已经发展出了多种句法理论,包括词汇功能语法 (LFG)(Kaplan 和 Bresnan 1982)、中心词驱动短语结构语法 (HPSG)(Pollard 和 Sag 1994)和统一范畴语法(Zeevat、Klein 和 Calder 1991)。这些基于统一的理论在一个关键方面不同于句法转换理论(如第 3 章中介绍的理论)。转换理论利用移动规则,通过移动成分(有时移动距离很长),将深层(或底层)结构转换为表层结构。例如,在下面句子 (i) 的转换说明中,成分which dog按照规则从标记为“_”的位置移动到句子的前面:
A variety of syntactic theories have been developed based on unification-based grammars, including Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) (Kaplan and Bresnan 1982), Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) (Pollard and Sag 1994), and Unification Categorial Grammar (Zeevat, Klein, and Calder 1991). These unification-based theories differ in one crucial way from transformational theories of syntax, like the theory presented in Chapter 3. Transformational theories make use of movement rules that transform a deep (or underlying) structure into a surface structure by moving constituents, sometimes over a long distance. For example, in the transformational account of sentence (i) below, the constituent which dog is moved by a rule from the position marked “_” to the front of the sentence:
此帐户是哪只狗和买之间的关系的“程序性”表示,通过涉及运动的过程来解释结构关系。在句法中,就像在形态学中一样,计算语言学家喜欢对语言数据进行陈述性描述,因为它们有助于将语言数据与对数据进行操作的计算机程序区分开来。基于统一的理论使用声明性表示,基于在两个结构位置之间共享特征值(例如,在主题 NPs 和 VPs 之间共享一致性),而不承诺任何特定的处理策略或从底层结构派生。
This account is a “procedural” representation of the relationship between which dog and to buy, explaining that structural relationship by a procedure involving movement. In syntax, as in morphology, computational linguists like to have declarative descriptions of linguistic data because they help keep the linguistic data distinct from the computer programs that operate on the data. Unification-based theories use a declarative representation, based on sharing feature values across the two structural positions (for example, sharing agreement between subject NPs and VPs), without committing to any particular processing strategy or derivation from an underlying structure.
基于统一的理论已被证明对计算语言学家更有吸引力,原因有很多,包括需要详细的语言描述、高效的处理,以及因为基于统一的语法是声明性的,所以既可用于生成也可用于解析。Sells ( 1985 ) 和 Shieber ( 1986 ) 对基于统一的方法进行了很好的概述。
Unification-based theories have proven more attractive to computational linguists for a variety of reasons, including the need for detailed linguistic description, efficient processing, and because, being declarative, unification-based grammars can be used for both generation and parsing. Good overviews of unification-based approaches are found in Sells (1985) and Shieber (1986).
在词序相对自由的语言中,例如梵语、土耳其语或捷克语,短语结构规则中存在的排序信息对句法分析的影响较小。这反过来又需要各种不同的句法理论(以及不同的解析策略),例如依存语法 ( Mel'čuk 1979 )和树邻接语法(Joshi 和 Schabes 1996)。
In languages with relatively free word order, such as Sanskrit, Turkish, or Czech, the ordering information present in phrase structure rules has less of an influence on syntactic analysis. This in turn has called for a variety of different syntactic theories (as well as different parsing strategies) such as Dependency Grammar (Mel’čuk 1979) and Tree Adjoining Grammar (Joshi and Schabes 1996).
到目前为止,我们讨论的是语言学家“手工”设计的语言规则。也可以训练机器从语言分析的例子中发现规则。例如,在句法的情况下,语言学家可能只提供解析树,计算机可以通过“研究”解析树的例子来“发现”语法。为此,语言学家需要确定将包含在语法中(并被语法允许)的短语结构规则(非终端结构类别和终端词汇类别的集合)。然后,语言学家收集一组称为语料库的文本(理想情况下是该语言的代表性样本),并用解析树分析和“标记”这些文本中的句子。一旦以这种方式注释了一个大型语料库,就创建了一个树库,计算机就可以被教导如何归纳语法从它。
So far, we have discussed linguistic rules which have been designed “by hand” by linguists. It is also possible to train a machine to discover the rules from examples of linguistic analyses. For example, in the case of syntax, the linguist may provide only the parse trees, from which the computer can “discover” the grammar by “studying” examples of parse trees. To do this, linguists need to decide on the phrase structure rules (the sets of nonterminal structural categories and terminal lexical categories) that will be included in (and allowed by) the grammar. The linguists then take a collection of texts called a corpus (ideally a representative sample of the language), and analyze and “mark up” the sentences in those texts with parse trees. Once a large corpus has been annotated in this way, creating a treebank, computers can be taught to induce grammars from it.
如何计算机如何从树库中“学习”语法?首先,程序计算每种句法配置在带注释的树库中出现的频率。每种配置都表示为一条规则,就像我们的玩具语法中的规则一样,并且每条规则都根据该配置在树库中出现的频率进行“加权”。例如,如果我们有一个仅由 (6) 和 (7) 中的两个句子组成的小型树库,则规则 S → NP VP 和 NP → Pronoun 会分别出现两次,而规则 VP → V NP、VP → Aux V 会分别出现一次。由于每次在树库中扩展 S 时都会使用规则 S → NP VP,因此该规则的权重非常高(概率为 1)。在树库中扩展 VP 的两次中,规则 VP → V NP 的使用次数为一半(一次),规则 VP → Aux V 的使用次数为另一次,因此后两个规则的权重相同(概率为 0.5)。 (但请记住,如此微小的树库对于语言来说太小,无法提供良好的概率估计!)这些加权规则将用于统计解析。例如,面对像“天文学家用望远镜看到行星”这样的句子的两棵可能的解析树,统计解析器将搜索具有最高概率的解析树。解析树的概率可以看作是该解析树中所有规则一起出现的概率。假设解析树中一条规则的概率与解析树中另一条规则的存在无关(即不受其影响),则解析树概率计算为解析树中所有规则概率的乘积(通过相乘)。
How can a computer “learn” a grammar from a treebank? First, a program counts how often each type of syntactic configuration is found in the annotated treebank. Each configuration is represented as a rule like the ones in our toy grammar, and each rule is “weighted” according to how often that configuration appears in the treebank. For example, if we had a tiny treebank consisting of just the two sentences in (6) and (7), the rules S → NP VP and NP → Pronoun would each occur twice, while the rules VP → V NP, VP → Aux V would each occur once. Since the rule S → NP VP is used every time an S is expanded in the treebank, the rule is weighted very high (given a probability of 1). Of the two times a VP is expanded in the treebank, the rule VP → V NP is used half the time (once), and the rule VP → Aux V is used the other time, so these latter two rules will be weighted equally (given a probability of 0.5). (Bear in mind, though, that such a tiny treebank is too small a sample of language to provide good estimates of probabilities!) These weighted rules would then be used in statistical parsing. For example, faced with two possible parse trees for a sentence like The astronomer saw the planet with a telescope, the statistical parser would search for the parse tree with the highest probability. The probability of a parse tree can be viewed as the probability of all the rules in that parse tree occurring together. Assuming that the probability of a rule in a parse tree is independent of (that is, not affected by) the presence of another rule in the parse tree, the parse tree probability is computed as the product (by multiplication) of probabilities of all the rules in the parse tree.
当然,需要人工标记使得带注释语料库的构建成为一项昂贵的资本投资,但一旦统计解析器开发出来,它就可以非常快速地解析(创建句法表示)语言中无限数量的新句子,并且具有可测量的准确度。准确度的测量方法是选择测试句子,并将统计系统的解析树中的成分与树库解析树中的成分(由人类识别)进行比较。机器诱导的语法往往至少与基于人类直觉“手工”开发的语法一样好。(这并不奇怪,因为人类对带注释语料库中的语言结构的直觉是统计解析器语法模型的基础。)在树库中上下文无关语法解析树上训练的统计解析器在各种测试集上的准确率约为 90%。
The need for human mark-up makes the construction of annotated corpora an expensive capital investment, of course, but once the statistical parser has been developed, it can very quickly parse (create syntactic representations of) an indefinite number of new sentences in the language with a measurable level of accuracy. Accuracy is measured by selecting test sentences and comparing the constituents in the statistical system’s parse trees to the constituents (identified by humans) in the treebank’s parse tree. Grammars induced by machines tend to perform at least as well as grammars developed “by hand” based on human intuitions. (This is not all that surprising, since the human intuitions about the language’s structures that go into the annotated corpus are the basis of the statistical parser’s model of the grammar.) Statistical parsers trained on context-free grammar parse trees from a treebank achieve about 90 percent accuracy on various test sets.
手工编写的语法和语料库生成的语法都被广泛使用,尤其是当语法是上下文无关的形式时。在实际情况下,解析方法需要有效地处理长句和/或语法模糊的句子。当输入格式不正确(或非正式和电报式的,如聊天消息)或超出系统语法范围时,解析方法还需要能够表示句子片段。
Both hand-crafted and corpus-induced grammars are widely used, especially when the grammars are in context-free form. In practical settings, parsing methods need to deal efficiently with long and/or syntactically ambiguous sentences. They also need to be able to represent fragments of sentences when the input is ill-formed (or informal and telegraphic, as in chat messages), or outside the scope of the system’s grammar.
计算机如何理解话语的含义?既然话语是由单词组成的,那么我们必须首先回答另一个问题:计算机如何理解单词的含义?
How can a computer understand the meaning of an utterance? Since utterances are made up of words, we must first answer another question: how can a computer understand the meaning of a word?
在本章的开始,我们描述了计算和语言学之间的一些联系。既然我们已经介绍了有限状态方法和上下文无关语法,我们可以讨论语言描述和计算之间的基本联系。我们已经看到,语言是由不同复杂程度的结构组成的。更复杂的结构需要更复杂或更“富有表现力”的语法。越来越富有表现力的语法的层次结构被称为乔姆斯基层次结构(Chomsky 1956)。
At the beginning of this chapter, we described some connections between computation and linguistics. Now that we’ve introduced finite-state methods and context-free grammars, we can discuss a fundamental connection between linguistic descriptions and computation. We have seen that languages are composed of structures of varying complexity. More complex structures require more complex, or more “expressive,” grammars. The hierarchy of successively more expressive grammars is called the Chomsky hierarchy (Chomsky 1956).
最简单的语法称为正则表达式。例如,正则表达式可以对形态现象进行建模。任何由正则表达式建模的事物都可以反过来用上下文无关语法进行建模。但是,有些现象(例如,中心嵌入的句子,如校长讨厌的男孩爱的小狗跑掉了)不能用正则表达式建模,但可以用上下文无关语法建模。因此,上下文无关语法比正则表达式更具表现力;它们可以对正则表达式可以建模的所有内容进行建模,甚至更多。
The simplest grammars are called regular expressions. Regular expressions can model morphological phenomena, for example. Anything modeled by regular expressions can in turn be modeled by context-free grammars as well. However, there are phenomena (for example, center-embedded sentences like The little puppy the boy the principal hated loved ran away) that can’t be modeled by regular expressions but can be modeled by context-free grammars. So context-free grammars are more expressive than regular expressions; they can model everything that regular expressions can model, and more.
反过来,自然语言中有些现象无法用上下文无关语法来解释,但可以用上下文相关语法来处理 (Shieber 1985 )。上下文相关语法可以模拟上下文无关语法可以表达的一切,甚至更多。反过来,上下文相关语法无法表示另一类语法(恰如其分的“非限制性语法”)可以表达的某些形式模式。
In turn, there are phenomena in natural language that can’t be accounted for by context-free grammars but can be handled by a context-sensitive grammar (Shieber 1985). Context-sensitive grammars can model everything a context-free grammar can express, and more. Context-sensitive grammars, in turn, cannot represent certain formal patterns which another class of grammars, the aptly named “unrestricted grammars,” can express.
事实证明,对于乔姆斯基层次结构中的每一级语法表达能力,都有一个类似的计算设备,如下图所示。因此,正则表达式相当于有限状态机。上下文无关语法相当于称为下推自动机的机器。上下文相关语法相当于称为线性有界自动机的机器。无限制语法相当于图灵机。尚未被推翻的丘奇-图灵论题提出,这是可计算复杂性的极限。
It turns out that for every level of grammatical expressiveness in the Chomsky hierarchy there is an analogous computing device, as shown in the figure below. Thus, regular expressions are equivalent to finite-state machines. Context-free grammars are equivalent to machines called push-down automata. Context-sensitive grammars are equivalent to machines called linear-bounded automata. And unrestricted grammars are equivalent to Turing Machines. The Church–Turing thesis, which has yet to be disproved, proposes that this is the limit to computable complexity.
语言模式的复杂性(源自长期的进化过程)与计算模型类别(源自数学原理)之间的这种基本关系是自然界形式模式的证据。它还表明,可以用特定语法形式捕捉的语言现象可以自动处理,从而保证了语言学计算方法的可行性。
Such a fundamental relationship between the complexity of linguistic patterns (arising from a long evolutionary process) and classes of computational models (arising from mathematical principles) is evidence of formal patterning in nature. It also shows that linguistic phenomena that can be captured in particular grammar formalisms can be automatically processed, thus guaranteeing the viability of computational approaches to linguistics.
假设我们已经对话语进行了句法分析,并获得了它的解析树。如果我们从解析树开始,我们可以将含义与树底部的单词关联起来,并使用该信息和树的结构为句子提供含义。对于句法上无歧义的句子,每个单词只有一个含义,这将相对简单。树底部的每个单词将在词汇数据库(本质上是一本数字词典)中“查找”,单词的含义将根据解析树中表示的结构关系连接在一起,以产生句子的含义。
Assume that we have carried out syntactic parsing of the utterance, and have obtained a parse tree for it. If we start with the parse tree, we can associate meanings with the words at the bottom of the tree, and use that information and the structure of the tree to provide a meaning for the sentence. For a syntactically unambiguous sentence, consisting of words which each have only one meaning, this would be relatively simple. Each word at the bottom of the tree would be “looked up” in a lexical database (essentially, a digital dictionary) and the meanings of words would be connected together according to the structural relations represented in the parse tree, to produce the meaning of the sentence.
然而,事情很少会这么简单!单词在语义上可能会有歧义。一个单词不仅可以有多个词性,而且即使一个给定词性的单词也可能有多个含义。例如,即使我们忽略了它作为动词的几个含义,名词“ spot”也可能表示某个特定位置(我们找到了一个吃午饭的好地方)或污渍(Out, out, damned spot),或者在英式英语中表示少量(Would you want a spot of tea?)。计算机如何确定其含义?为此,我们使用了一个称为词义消歧器的程序。词义消歧器(Kilgarriff and Palmer 2000 ) 可以使用句子中相邻单词的上下文以及文档中的其他单词来确定给定单词最有可能的含义。与词性标注器一样,它使用依赖于上下文的规则,这些规则可以通过人类直觉或通过训练机器学习程序得出。
However, things are rarely that simple! Words can be semantically ambiguous. Not only can a word have more than one part of speech, but even a word which is a given part of speech may have more than one meaning. For example, even if we leave out its several meanings as a verb, the noun spot could mean a particular location (We found a nice spot for lunch) or a stain (Out, out, damned spot) or, in British English, a small amount (Would you like a spot of tea?). How is a computer to decide which meaning is intended? A program called a word-sense disambiguator is used for this. A word-sense disambiguator (Kilgarriff and Palmer 2000) can use the context of neighboring words in the sentence as well as other words in the document to figure out which meaning of a given word is most likely. Like a part-of-speech tagger, it uses rules that depend on context, and these rules can be derived by human intuition or by training a machine learning program.
现在我们来看一下单词的句法和语义属性在计算机的数字词典中是如何表示的。以动词cook为例。动词的含义包括其句法子类别(句法元素或“论点”,它与之相结合)及其主题角色(动词与其论元之间的语义关系)。在(9)中,我们展示了及物动词cook的三种不同的句法子范畴化。(我们将使用全部大写字母来表示单词的含义。)
We now turn to how a word’s syntactic and semantic properties are represented in the computer’s digital lexicon. Consider the verb cook. A verb’s meaning includes its syntactic subcategorization (the syntactic elements, or “arguments,” it combines with) and its thematic roles (the semantic relations between a verb and its arguments). In (9), we show three different syntactic subcategorizations of the transitive verb cook. (We will use all capital letters to signify the meaning of a word.)
| (9) |
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第一个句法子范畴化(9a)表示cook以单个 NP 作为句法论元,并且该 NP 是主题或烹制的东西。因此,如果计算机看到Husain cook meatloaf ,那么cook的第一个含义就会被识别。(9b)中cook的第二个含义以两个 NP 作为句法论元 — — 第一个 NP 作为烹制的东西的接受者,第二个 NP 作为主题或烹制的东西。因此,在处理像Husain cook Mary a great dinner这样的句子时,计算机可以利用Mary和a great dinner都是 NP 的知识来识别第二个含义。cook 的第三个含义(9c)以 NP 和 PP 作为其论元,后者以for开头 — — 第一个 NP 作为主题,随后的 PP 作为接受者。如果程序处理像Husain cook a great dinner for Mary这样的句子,它可以使用cook后面的 NP 和 PP 的标识来识别第三个含义,其中接受者可以在介词短语中找到。
The first syntactic subcategorization (9a) says that cook takes a single NP as its syntactic argument, and that NP is the theme, or thing cooked. So, if the computer saw Husain cooked meatloaf, the first meaning of cook would be recognized. The second meaning of cook in (9b) takes two NPs as its syntactic arguments – the first NP as recipient of something cooked, and the second NP as the theme, or thing cooked. So in processing a sentence like Husain cooked Mary a great dinner, the computer can use the knowledge that Mary and a great dinner are both NPs to recognize the second meaning. The third meaning of cook (9c) takes an NP and PP, the latter beginning with for, as its arguments – the first NP as theme, and the subsequent PP as recipient. If the program processes a sentence like Husain cooked a great dinner for Mary, it can use the identification of the NP and PP following cook to recognize the third meaning, where the recipient is to be found in the prepositional phrase.
现在我们已经知道了如何在计算机中捕捉词义,我们可以根据句子中单词的含义来构建句子含义的问题。
Now that we have an idea of how to capture word meaning in a computer, we can turn to the problem of constructing a meaning for a sentence, based on the meanings of the words in it.
语义计算方法的一个常见假设是,整体的意义系统地由各部分的意义组成。基于组合语义的计算机程序将句子的意义与组成句子的单词和短语的意义组合在一起。因此,给定句子Husain cooks meatloaf,其解析树在许多方面应该与 (6) 相似,cook的意义(9a)适用,因此cook只有一个 NP 参数NP meatloaf的含义由词汇数据库提供:MEATLOAF 。然后,VP 的含义可以通过将cook的含义与meatloaf的含义相结合来构建。但是计算机如何组合含义呢?
A common assumption underlying computational approaches to semantics is that the meaning of the whole is systematically composed of the meaning of the parts. A computer program based on compositional semantics puts together the sentence meaning from the meanings of the words and phrases that compose it. Thus, given the sentence Husain cooks meatloaf, which should have a parse tree similar in many respects to (6), the meaning (9a) for cook would be applicable, so that we have cook taking a single argument that is an NP. The meaning of the NP meatloaf would be supplied by the lexical database: MEATLOAF. Then, the meaning of the VP can be built up by combining the meaning of cook with the meaning of meatloaf. But how can a computer combine meanings?
解决此问题的方法之一是在语法中制定伴随句法规则的语义规则。因此,下面的句法规则(10a)增加了语义规则(10b),该规则规定 VP 的含义是通过将 V 的含义应用于 NP 的含义而构建的 (Jurafsky and Martin 2000 )。
One way to approach this is to have semantic rules that accompany syntactic rules in the grammar. Thus, the syntactic rule (10a) below is augmented with a semantic rule (10b) that says the VP’s meaning is constructed by applying the V’s meaning to the NP’s meaning (Jurafsky and Martin 2000).
| (10) |
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换句话说,就像数学函数 (n +1) 会取任意数字 (n) 并返回将其加 1 的结果一样,(10b)是一个函数,它取 V 的含义并添加 NP 的含义并返回结果(VP 的含义)。我们示例中的结果表明MEATLOAF就是COOKED。这个含义由表达式COOK ( MEATLOAF ) 表示。
In other words, just like a mathematical function (n +1) will take any number (n) and return the result of adding 1 to it, (10b) is a function that takes V’s meaning and adds the meaning of the NP and returns a result (the meaning of the VP). The result in our example indicates that MEATLOAF is what is COOKED. This meaning is represented by the expression COOK(MEATLOAF).
计算语义主要关注表示这些类型的语义功能,即从较小的短语组合出较大的短语的语义的规则。
Computational semantics is largely concerned with representing these kinds of semantic functions, the rules for assembling the semantics of larger phrases from smaller ones.
计算机可以生成文本吗?你可能熟悉计算机提供的警告或帮助消息,例如“找不到文件!”。这些都是“预设文本”的例子,计算机会在被编程为处理特定情况时打印出来。这类系统不使用语言规则,不能生成新颖的句子。另一方面,上下文无关语法(比如我们在(5)中看到的语法)往往会过度生成,或者产生不符合语法的句子,例如“我会跳舞”。这是自然语言生成的一个问题,因为自然语言生成不应该生成不可接受或误导性的话语。自然语言生成远远超出了预设文本,它将语言知识应用于一系列实际应用,包括生成天气报告、股市报告和“个性化”营销信函。
Can a computer generate text? You’re probably familiar with computers providing warnings or help messages, such as “File not found!” These are examples of “canned text” which the computer prints out in response to particular cases that it has been programmed to handle. Such systems do not use linguistic rules, and they cannot generate novel sentences. On the other hand, context-free grammars, like the one we saw in (5), tend to overgenerate, or produce sentences that are ungrammatical, such as I can the dance. This is a problem for natural language generation, where unacceptable or misleading utterances should not be generated. Natural language generation goes far beyond canned text, applying linguistic knowledge to a range of practical applications, including generating weather reports, reports from the stock market, and “personalized” marketing letters.
生成器首先会传递一些需要传达的信息,以及一个沟通目标——例如,告知用户某件事或请求更多信息来自用户的信息。自然语言生成有两个主要步骤:决定说什么(称为战略生成)和决定怎么说(称为战术生成)。
The generator starts with some information to be communicated, along with a communicative goal – for example, to inform the user about something or to request more information from the user. There are two main steps in natural language generation: deciding what to say (called strategic generation), and deciding how to say it (called tactical generation).
20 世纪 70 年代和 80 年代,在自然语言输入的形态、句法和语义处理中,大量使用手工创建的语言模型。计算语言学团队会花费许多人年的时间,为特定应用手工制定语法和规则。当需要将各种规则整合在一起并让系统执行演示任务(处理自然语言测试语料库)时,团队必须尝试各种临时技巧(或“启发式方法”),以确保句法分析器产生“正确的解析”或语义解释器产生“正确的含义”。通过使用规定(如“如有疑问,让程序将 PP '低' 附加到 NP,而不是将 PP '高' 附加到 VP”)、从语料库统计数据中得出的偏好或关于系统将在哪些句子样本上进行演示的假设,花费了大量精力来“调整”系统的规则。
The 1970s and 1980s saw much use of hand-created linguistic models in morphological, syntactic, and semantic processing of natural language input. A computational linguistics team would spend many person-years hand-crafting grammars and rules for a particular application. When it came time to put the various rules together and get the system to work on a demonstration task (processing a test corpus of natural language), the team would have to try various ad hoc tricks (or “heuristics”) to ensure that “the right parse” emerged from a syntactic analyzer or “the right meaning” was produced by a semantic interpreter. A great deal of effort was spent “tuning” the system’s rules, by using stipulations (like “When in doubt, have the program attach PPs ‘low’ to NPs rather than ‘high’ to VPs”), preferences derived from corpus statistics, or assumptions about what sample of sentences the system would be demonstrated on.
20 世纪 90 年代,计算语言学发生了巨大变化,转向基于语料库的统计方法,这种方法至今仍占据主导地位。在大多数领域,语言学家现在花在设计和调整语言规则上的时间更少,而花在设计和实施注释方案上的时间更多,以便用语言信息标记自然语言语料库。注释方案一旦开发出来,就会进行“调试”,以确保其他语言学家能够接受培训,从而可靠地注释自然语言语料库。拥有一份可以被其他注释者忠实复制的注释非常重要,原因有几个。在任何科学方法中,能够复制结果对于验证任何主张都至关重要。此外,一个使用反映个别注释者偏见和想法的数据进行训练的系统,在一般语言样本上不会有很好的表现。
The 1990s saw a sea-change in computational linguistics toward corpus-based, statistical methods, which dominate the field to this day. In most areas, linguists now spend less time designing and tweaking linguistic rules and more time designing and implementing annotation schemes for marking up natural language corpora with linguistic information. Once an annotation scheme is developed, it is “debugged” to ensure that other linguists can be trained to reliably annotate a corpus of natural language. Having an annotation which can be faithfully reproduced by other annotators is important for several reasons. In any scientific methodology, being able to replicate results is crucial to verify any claims. Further, a system trained on data that reflect the biases and whims of an individual annotator would not fare well on a general sample of the language.
计算机程序可以从足够大且广泛的语料库(已针对特定语言信息(例如,针对词性)进行注释)中得出统计模式。反过来,这些模式又用于开发程序,以自动注释不断扩展的语料库中的更多文本。然后,注释后的文本可用于各种“现实世界”应用程序,例如信息提取和文本摘要。
From a sufficiently large and broad corpus which has been annotated for particular linguistic information (for example, for parts of speech) computer programs can derive statistical patterns. These patterns, in turn, are used to develop programs for automatically annotating further texts in an ever-expanding corpus. The annotated texts are then available for various “real-world” applications like information extraction and text summarization.
当语言学家注释大型语料库时,自动程序会先注释语料库,然后语言学家会纠正机器注释。在许多问题领域,包括词性标注和解析,与让语言学家从头注释文本相比,这种方法通常效率更高,并且可靠性更高!
When linguists annotate a large corpus, an automatic program first annotates the corpus, with the machine annotations being corrected by the linguists. In many problem areas, including part-of-speech tagging and parsing, this method is generally far more efficient and leads to better reliability among linguists compared to having them annotate the text from scratch!
在战略生成,系统必须从数据集中选择特定内容(称为“消息单元”的抽象信息块),并确定输出的整体结构,输出结构可以短至短语,也可以长至整个文档。战略生成器指定文本中将包含哪些消息单元,并规划输出文本的结构或话语模型。例如,推销新产品的商业信函可能包括以下信息元素:公司最新发展动态的更新、新产品信息、与竞争产品的比较(可能还有贬损评论),以及联系和购买信息。每个元素都将表示为一个或多个消息单元。
In strategic generation, the system must select specific content (abstract chunks of information called “message units”) from a data set, and decide on the overall structure of the output, which can be as short as a phrase or as long as an entire document. The strategic generator specifies which message units will be included in the text and plans the structure, or discourse model, of the output text. For example, a business letter touting a new product might include information elements such as an update on the latest developments at the company, information about the new product, and comparisons with (and perhaps disparaging remarks about) competing products, followed by contact and purchasing information. Each of these elements will be represented as one or more message units.
在策略生成中,系统根据话语模型指定的抽象消息单元生成句子。在最简单的情况下,每个消息单元可以表示为 单个句子中可以包含多个消息,但可以将多个消息组合成一个句子,或者将单个消息拆分成多个句子。战术生成器会应用话语模型中的信息来做出此类句子构建决策。
In tactical generation, the system generates sentences from the abstract message units specified by the discourse model. In the simplest case, each message unit may be expressed in a single sentence, but multiple messages can be combined in a single sentence or a single message can be split across multiple sentences. The tactical generator applies information from the discourse model to make these kinds of sentence-building decisions.
为了构造一个句子,策略生成器使用预期输出的语义表示和语法,就像一个配方,说明如何以语法上可能的顺序和结构将正确的成分混合在一起。通常,可以从语义输入中构造出许多可能的句子。由于生成涉及做出各种句法和词汇选择,因此根据这些选择来组织语法规则会有所帮助。例如,在这样的语法中,选择可能首先涉及决定句子的语气(祈使语气、疑问语气或陈述语气)、语态是主动语态还是被动语态、哪个成分将成为焦点等等;然后,这些选择限制了构造话语的语义和句法选择。韩礼德(1985)的系统语法方法以这种方式组织语法,已广泛应用于策略生成。
To build a sentence, the tactical generator uses a semantic representation of the intended output and a grammar like a recipe for how to mix together the right ingredients in a grammatically possible order and structure. There will usually be many possible sentences that can be built from the semantic input. Since generation involves making a variety of syntactic and lexical choices, it helps to organize the grammar rules in terms of these choices. For example, in such a grammar, the choices may first involve deciding on the mood of the sentence (imperative, interrogative, or declarative), whether the voice is active or passive, which constituent will be in focus, and so on; these choices then constrain the semantic and syntactic choices for constructing the utterance. The Systemic Grammar approach of Halliday (1985), which organizes grammar in this fashion, has been widely used in tactical generation.
我们之前已经看到,统计方法可用于解析。为什么不也将它们用于生成呢?近年来,统计方法已用于策略生成;一种方法是使用语法来查找给定输入的多种实现方式,然后根据语料库选择最可能的句子。例如,给定输入COOK + PAST ( HUSAIN , MEATLOAF ),这可以得出Husain 煮了肉饼、Husain 烤了肉饼、肉饼是由 Husain 烹制的、是 Husain 准备了肉饼,等等。但是,我们刚才列举的特定句子可能不在语料库中。(事实上,我们极不可能在任何语料库中找到任何特定的句子 - 比如我现在正在写的句子 - (也就是说,除了从这本书中制作的语料库!)那么,我们如何计算不在语料库中的句子的概率?
We have seen earlier that statistical approaches can be used for parsing. Why not use them for generation as well? Statistical methods have been used, in recent years, in tactical generation; one approach is to use the grammar to find the many ways in which a given input can be realized, and then select the most likely sentence given a corpus. For example, given the input COOK+PAST(HUSAIN, MEATLOAF), this could yield Husain cooked meatloaf, Husain baked the meatloaf, The meatloaf was cooked by Husain, It was Husain who prepared the meatloaf, etc. However, the particular sentences we enumerated just now may not be in the corpus. (In fact, it is extremely unlikely that we will find any particular sentence – like the one I’m writing right now – in any corpus (that is, other than one made from this book!) So, how are we to compute the probability of sentences which aren’t in the corpus?
考虑句子(11):
Consider the sentence (11):
| (11) |
三位年轻人去参加一场单打比赛。 The three young men went to a singles __. |
最有可能填补(11)中空白的单词是bar或club。你是怎么猜到的?singles这个词是个很好的提示。这个例子表明我们可以假设看到一个单词的概率仅取决于前一个或两个单词的上下文。(在前一种情况下,我们假设一个句法的“二元模型”;在后一种情况下,我们假设一个句法的“三元模型”。)虽然给定的句子可能不会出现在语料库中,但单词对或三个单词更有可能出现。这意味着我们可以根据句子中每个特定单词跟在前一个单词后面的(二元模型)概率(当然除了句子中的第一个单词),计算出一个句子本身不在语料库中的概率。换句话说,我们可以计算一个特定单词跟在另一个单词后面的频率。
The most likely word to fill the gap in (11) is bar or club. How did you guess that? The word singles was a good hint. This example suggests we may be able to get away with assuming that the probability of seeing a word depends on a context of just the previous one or two words. (In the former case, we assume a “bigram model” of syntax, in the latter case, a “trigram model” of syntax.) While a given sentence may not occur in the corpus, pairs or triples of words are more likely to occur. This means we can compute the probability of a sentence which isn’t itself in the corpus based on the (bigram model) probability of each particular word in the sentence following the previous word (except of course for the first word in the sentence). In other words, we can count how often one particular word follows another.
基于二元组和三元组的统计生成方法构建起来相对便宜,并且已在各种系统中使用。但是,它们不能解决长距离依赖关系。例如,下面的句子(12)表明,名词短语which goldfish是动词feed的参数,尽管它们彼此相距很远(长距离依赖关系)。
Bigram- and trigram-based statistical approaches to generation are relatively inexpensive to build and have been used in a variety of systems. However, they do not address long-distance dependencies. For example, the sentence (12) below shows that the noun phrase which goldfish is an argument of the verb feed, though they are located far away from each other (a long-distance dependency).
| (12) |
希拉里要求约翰告诉巴拉克喂哪条金鱼? Which goldfish did Hilary request John to tell Barack to feed? |
现在应该很清楚,鉴于统计方法的成功,我们目前至少有两种构建语言理论的方法:基于语言直觉手工得出规则的传统方法,以及基于语料库的统计概括自动得出规则(曾经过时的)的方法。哪种方法更好?这些表示方法中的哪些实际上是人类思维所使用的?
It should be clear by now that, given the success of statistical methods, we have at least two ways of building linguistic theories at this time: the traditional way of arriving at rules by hand, based on linguistic intuitions, and the (once unfashionable) way of deriving rules automatically based on statistical generalizations from a corpus. Which of these methods is better? And which of these representations are actually used by human minds?
统计分析最初遭到大多数语言学家的质疑。他们认为统计方法是基于从无限语言的小样本中归纳得出的,因此会歪曲语言。这些语言学家还声称,说话者实际发出的话语是无关紧要的“噪音”,与说话者的语言能力没有系统关系。他们说,由于语言语料库只模拟表现,因此对这些语料库进行统计分析无法代表语言能力。但许多语言学家认为能力和表现之间的区别并不明显。尤其是社会语言学家,他们认为语言表现的变化是系统的、可预测的,对某种语言的使用者来说很有意义。语法理论在能力和表现之间的界限上有所不同,有些语法(如韩礼德的系统语法)被组织为功能导向的选择系统。计算语言学本质上处理的是实际、混乱且不完整的数据。然而,从大型语料库中收集到的见解可能对语料库之外的语言也有效。
Statistical analysis was initially discredited by most linguists. They argued that statistical methods are based on induction from small samples of an infinite language, and so they will misrepresent the language. These linguists also claimed that the utterances that speakers actually produce are insignificant “noise” which is not systematically related to the speaker’s linguistic competence. Since language corpora model only performance, they said, statistical analyses of those corpora cannot represent linguistic competence. But many linguists don’t find the competence–performance distinction to be clear-cut. Sociolinguists, in particular, have argued that the variability of linguistic performance is systematic, predictable, and meaningful to speakers of a language. Grammatical theories vary in where they draw the line between competence and performance, with some grammars (such as Halliday’s Systemic Grammar) organized as systems of functionally oriented choices. Computational linguistics, by its very nature, does process actual, messy, and incomplete data. However, insights gleaned from a large corpus may be valid for language beyond the corpus.
如果从例子中得出的统计规则与从直觉中得出的规则一样有效,那么这表明概率统计语言规则可能有助于解释或模拟人类语言行为。这也表明人类可以通过使用统计规律进行归纳来从经验中学习。这些论点中的一个关键问题是语法的性质。句子的语法性是一个全有或全无的判断,还是可以分级,甚至可以沿着连续体进行测量?每个语言学家都知道某些语法区别的模糊性。
If statistical rules induced from examples perform just as well as rules derived from intuition, then this suggests that probabilistic statistical linguistic rules might help explain or model human linguistic behavior. It also suggests that humans might learn from experience by means of induction using statistical regularities. A critical issue in these arguments is the nature of grammaticality. Is the grammaticality of a sentence an all-or-nothing judgment, or is it gradable, or even measurable along a continuum? Every linguist is aware of the fuzziness of certain grammatical distinctions.
多年来,由于缺乏能够处理句法和其他“隐藏结构”级别的覆盖面广泛的解析器和统计模型,语料库语言学研究很少研究词汇级别以上的统计数据。在充斥着各种工具和统计模型的当前环境下,语料库语言学应该能够大大扩展其描述和解释范围。
For many years, corpus linguistic research rarely examined statistics above the level of words, due to the lack of availability of broad-coverage parsers and statistical models that could handle syntax and other levels of “hidden structure.” The present climate, awash in tools and statistical models, should allow corpus linguistics to extend its descriptive and explanatory scope dramatically.
此时,您应该对如何使用统计数据来消除句子解析的歧义有一个大致的了解。您应该了解语法注释语料库在此过程中发挥的作用。您还应该了解如何进行自然语言生成 - 您可以在练习 14.5中测试您对策略生成的理解。
At this point, you should have a general idea as to how statistics can be used to disambiguate sentence parsing. You should understand what role syntactically annotated corpora play in this process. You should also have an appreciation of how natural language generation can be carried out – and you can test your understanding of tactical generation in Exercise 14.5.
计算语言学对社会的影响取决于它所实现的应用。多年来,计算机一直在使用更多的计算语言学工具在多语言文字处理、拼写校正和语法检查等应用中,计算机处理速度显著提高,并且能够以低成本在线存储大量信息,这使得计算机可处理的信息量呈指数级增长,其中很多信息都是自然语言。数据库中还存储了大量以结构化形式存储的信息;因此,能够将文本转换为结构化形式(信息提取技术的工作)变得非常重要。由于计算机可以搜索不同语言的文档,并且比人类更快地找到信息,因此在网页中搜索的搜索引擎变得非常有用。随着电子邮件和手机的广泛使用,语音应用程序已开始出现在航班信息和酒店预订系统中。这些技术和其他技术为嵌入和应用计算语言学方法提供了机会。我们在这里重点介绍四种相关技术:信息提取、自动摘要、语音识别、语音合成和机器翻译。
The impact of computational linguistics on society depends on the applications it makes possible. Computers have for many years been using more computational linguistics tools in applications such as multilingual word processing, spelling correction, and grammar checking. In the last decade, the dramatic increase in speed of computers and the ability to inexpensively store vast amounts of information online has resulted in an exponential increase in the amount of information available to computers, with a lot of it being in natural languages. There is also a lot of information stored in structured form in databases; as a result, being able to convert from text to structured form (the job of information extraction technology) has become important. Since computers can search through documents in different languages and find information much faster than humans can, search engines that troll through web pages have become extremely useful. With the wide use of email and cellular phones, speech-enabled applications have started to become a presence in flight information and hotel reservation systems. These and other technologies provide opportunities to embed and apply computational linguistic methods. We focus on four related technologies here: information extraction, automatic summarization, speech recognition, speech synthesis, and machine translation.
除了使用语言语料库测试理论假设外,基于语料库的方法还可用于发现现实世界中有趣的模式。使用计算机进行这项工作非常有趣,但如果没有计算机,这项工作就会非常乏味!
In addition to testing theoretical hypotheses using a language corpus, corpus-based approaches can be used to discover interesting patterns in the real world. This can be sheer fun using a computer, and terribly tedious to do without one!
例如,如果我们想知道媒体如何描述或描述不同的职业,该怎么办?想象一个程序能够浏览数千页在线报纸,(i)找到其中提到的人,(ii)找到他们的职业。然后,该程序可以(iii)识别句子中以该职业的人为主语的动词(例如,游戏节目主持人约翰逊在法庭上承诺偿还……)。最后,(iv)该程序可以测量特定动词(以及它们所指的动作)归因于特定职业的频率。
For example, what if we wanted to know how different occupations are described or characterized in the media? Imagine a program that is able to troll through thousands of pages of online newspapers, (i) finding people mentioned in them, and (ii) finding their occupations. Then, the program could (iii) identify verbs in sentences where people with that occupation are mentioned as the subject (for example, Johnson, the game show host, promised in court to pay back the …). Finally, (iv) the program could measure how frequently particular verbs (and the actions they refer to) are attributed to particular occupations.
计算机程序可以通过识别专有名词和解析代词以及其他对人的引用来在网络上找到人。其他计算机程序可以解析与姓名相邻的头衔、同位语短语和关系从句,并提取这些描述性短语的中心名词以识别人的职业。还有一些计算机程序可以解析包含这些姓名和已识别职业的句子,以识别主谓关联。最后一组程序可以计算特定主语和特定动词同时出现的次数,然后评估该主谓对同时出现的概率。这些组件可以像乐高积木一样组装在一起,就像我们在有限状态传感器中看到的那样。
Computer programs can find people on the Web by identifying proper names and resolving pronominal and other references to people. Other computer programs can parse titles, appositive phrases, and relative clauses adjacent to the name, and extract the head nouns of these descriptive phrases to identify people’s occupations. Still other computer programs can parse the sentences containing these names and identified occupations to identify subject–verb associations. A final set of programs can count how many times particular subjects and particular verbs co-occurred, and then assess the probability of that subject–verb pair occurring together. These components could be put together like Lego blocks, as we saw with finite-state transducers.
下表(来自 Schiffman、Mani 和 Concepcion 2001)显示了对路透社近三年的通讯社新闻报道(约 1.06 亿字,取自北美新闻文本语料库)进行此类分析的结果。职业以斜体显示,并显示了与特定主题最密切相关的动词。
The table below (from Schiffman, Mani, and Concepcion 2001) shows the results of this kind of analysis on nearly three years of wire service news reports from the Reuters news service (about 106 million words, drawn from the North American News Text Corpus). The occupations are shown in italic, and the verbs most strongly associated with particular subjects are shown.
Verbs that characterize subjects described with particular occupations executive police politician reprimand shoot clamor conceal raid jockey bank arrest wrangle foresee detain woo conspire disperse exploit convene interrogate brand plead swoop behave sue evict dare answer bundle sway commit manhandle criticize worry search flank accompany confiscate proclaim own apprehend annul witness round favor
这些动词描绘出了每个职业的画像,不是吗?!这类数据在计算语言学应用中非常重要,例如生成追踪新闻人物的传记“档案”。它还具有社会语言学意义。在新闻媒体眼中,是否有特定的动词可以描述特定的职业?(例如,关于政客的故事是否主要集中在内斗上?)我们能否根据媒体描述特定人群的方式,将媒体归类为“保守派”或“自由派”?统计方法可用于进一步探索和回答这类问题,而这在以前是不可能的——通过语言分析隐藏在数十亿个单词中的模式。
The verbs paint a revealing portrait of each occupation, don’t they?! This sort of data can be very relevant in computational linguistic applications, such as generating biographical “dossiers” that track people in the news. It also can be of sociolinguistic interest. Are there particular verbs that characterize particular occupations, in the eyes of the news media? (For example, are stories about politicians largely focused on infighting?) Can we classify a particular media outlet as “conservative” or “liberal” based on the way it characterizes particular people? Statistical methods can be used to further explore and answer these sorts of questions in ways that were previously impossible – by linguistically analyzing the patterns hidden in billions of words of text.
之前,我们考虑了表示单词和句子含义的计算方法。信息提取(现在是一项商业“热门”技术)的应用领域试图从与特定类型事件相关的整体文档中得出语义内容。信息提取程序会自动从自然语言输入中填充模板(或表格)。例如,对于恐怖事件,需要填充的事件模板槽可能包括肇事者、受害者、事件类型以及事件发生的地点和时间。这里提取的不是单个句子的含义,而是有关文本中引用的特定实体的信息,例如事件、人物、组织、地点和时间(这些称为命名实体)以及它们之间的特定关系。这些摘要信息被收集在一起以表示文档内容。信息提取程序可以在人类阅读和提取一个文档内容所需的时间内提取数百个文档的相关内容。
Earlier, we considered computational approaches to representing word and sentence meaning. The application area of information extraction (which is now a commercially “hot” technology) tries to derive the semantic content of a document as a whole as it relates to particular types of events. Information extraction programs automatically fill out templates (or tables) from natural language input. For example, for terrorist events, the event template slots to be filled may include the perpetrator, the victim, the type of event, and where and when it occurred. What is extracted here is not the meaning of individual sentences, but information about specific entities referenced in the text, such as events, people, organizations, locations, and times (these are called named entities) and particular relations between them. This summary information is collected together to represent document content. An information extraction program can extract the relevant content of hundreds of documents in the time it would take a human to read and extract the content of one.
图 14.1显示了一个名为 Callisto 的编辑工具,它用于将标签插入文本(以不损坏或更改原始文档的方式)然后查看它们。左侧窗口的上半部分显示了来自美国之音广播节目的英语广播新闻文章,该文章由人工使用称为自动内容提取 (ACE) 的注释方案进行标记。右侧窗口显示了文章中标记的各种类型的实体以及提及次数。例如,“国际米兰”被突出显示,然后标记为组织;它被提及了四次(在文本中用水平条表示):“国际米兰”、“国际米兰”、“球队”和“国际”。实体提及的这种分组需要理解高于句子级别的文本中的共指关系,即话语级推理。左侧窗口的底部显示了在文本中发现的关系,例如,人物Renaldo是组织(即足球队)国际米兰的成员,也是巴西 公民。
Figure 14.1 shows an editing tool called Callisto that is used to insert tags into the text (in a way which does not damage or alter the original document) and then to view them. The window on the left shows, in the upper part, an English broadcast news article from a Voice of America radio program marked up by a human using an annotation scheme called Automatic Content Extraction (ACE). The window on the right shows entities of various types that were marked in the article, along with the number of mentions. For example, “Inter Milan” was highlighted and then marked as an Organization; it was mentioned four times (indicated with horizontal bars in the text): “Inter Milan,” “Inter Milan,” “the team,” and “Inter.” This grouping of mentions of an entity requires understanding coreference relationships in text above the level of the sentence, i.e. discourse-level inference. The bottom of the left window shows relationships that were found in the text, for example, the Person Renaldo is a member of the Organization (i.e. the soccer team) Inter Milan and a citizen of Brazil.
一旦对此类文档的集合进行了注释,计算机就会根据注释数据进行训练,以重现注释,并且任何测试的机器注释 可以将文章与人类的文章进行比较,并根据准确性进行评分。在此类任务中,信息提取系统面临的一个关键挑战是,为每种实体和关系提供足够的训练示例,以及在实体共指、事件模板和关系等任务中,整合来自文本不同部分的信息的能力。
Once a collection of such documents is annotated, the computer is trained from the annotated data to reproduce the annotation, and the machine annotation for any test article can be compared against the human one and scored for accuracy. One of the key challenges for information extraction systems in tasks like this is having enough training examples for each kind of entity and relation, as well as the ability, in the case of tasks such as entity coreference, event templates, and relations, to integrate information from different parts of the text.
自动摘要的目的是从一个或多个文档中浓缩信息,然后根据读者的需求将这些信息呈现给读者。例如,在手机上搜索网络的读者可能只想查看已检索到的每个顶级文本(或多媒体)文档中的几个与查询相关的片段。阅读高级生物学文本的孩子可能想要用通俗易懂的英语对书中的关键概念进行 200 字的总结;阅读化学期刊文章的学生可能只想要关键发现和所涉及的化学物质的精确描述。摘要可以采用摘录的形式,即完全由从输入中复制的材料组成的摘要,也可以采用摘要的形式,即至少部分材料不存在于输入中的摘要(因此,该摘要反映了对源材料内容的某种程度的吸收)。有关摘要的示例及其与原始来源的关系,请参阅本章末尾的简短(少于 200 字)章节摘要。
The goal of automatic summarization is to condense information from one or more documents, and then present that information to the reader in accordance with his or her needs. For example, a reader searching the web on a mobile phone may want to see just a few query-relevant snippets from each of the top text (or multimedia) documents that have been retrieved. A child perusing an advanced biology text may want a 200-word summary in plain English of the key concepts in the book; and a student reading a journal article on chemistry may want just the key findings and a precise description of the chemicals that were involved. A summary can take the form of an extract, i.e. a summary consisting entirely of material copied from the input, or an abstract, namely, a summary at least some of whose material is not present in the input (and, therefore, one that reflects some degree of assimilation of the source material’s contents). For an example of an abstract and how it relates to the original source, see the short (less than 200-word) chapter summary at the end of this chapter.
摘要可以看作是与自然语言生成有些类似的,因为系统必须决定要说什么(在这种情况下,基于从输入中选择相关的内容),然后以连贯的方式呈现它。选择阶段的一个关键方面是确定文档结构和内容如何帮助确定相关内容。例如,头条新闻文章通常会在开头包含最新消息,而科学论文可能会在结尾(结果或结论)中包含相关信息。文档中的特定线索可能会揭示关键信息,例如以“简而言之”、“总结”等短语开头。文章中提到的某些主题,包括与读者兴趣相关的主题,也可能很重要。对于多文档摘要,选择阶段必须过滤掉可能在文档之间重复的冗余信息。一旦选择了信息并根据重要性加权,就必须对其进行组织。在提取的情况下,按重要性顺序选择达到目标摘要长度的句子可能会导致它们乱序或中间有间隙。这可能会导致摘要不连贯,摘要句子中包含代词和其他与摘要中没有的信息相关的语篇引用。
Summarization can be viewed as somewhat analogous to natural language generation, in that the system has to decide what to say (based, in this case, on selecting what is relevant from the input) and then present it in a coherent manner. A crucial aspect of the selection phase is determining how the document structure and content help determine what is relevant. A headline news article, for example, will usually have the latest news at the beginning, while a scientific paper may have relevant information at the end, in the Results or Conclusion. Particular cues in the document may reveal key information, e.g. introduced with phrases like in a nutshell, to summarize, etc. Certain topics mentioned in the article, including those relevant to the reader’s interests, are also likely to be important. In the case of multi-document summaries, the selection phase has to filter out redundant information that may be repeated across documents. Once information has been selected and weighted for importance, it must be organized. In the case of extraction, selecting sentences up to the target summary length in order of importance may result in their being out of order or having gaps in between. This can result in an incoherent summary, as will summary sentences that contain pronouns and other discourse-dependent references to information that isn’t in the summary.
自动摘要受益于其他应用程序中使用的基于语料库的方法。源文档以及人类构建的参考摘要可用于训练摘要者在给定摘要的特定目标长度的情况下选择什么。在这种情况下的评估(在一系列年度评估中称为文档理解会议 (DUC))是基于将系统输出与参考摘要在内容方面进行比较,以及判断系统摘要的连贯性。内容比较可以在以下级别进行:单个单词(匹配共同的单词和短语),或者在句法或语义层面。请注意,生成摘要的摘要器通常会重新表述输入的材料,改变其句法结构和语义内容——例如,通过缩短句子或通过释义内容。显然,内容比较必须考虑同义词和释义等关系,因为系统摘要可能会使用或可能不会使用与参考摘要相同的单词。
Automatic summarization has benefitted from the corpus-based approach used in other applications. Source documents along with reference summaries constructed by humans can be used to train a summarizer as to what to select, given a particular target length for the summary. Evaluation in this setting, as carried out in a series of annual evaluations called the Document Understanding Conference (DUC), has been based on comparing the system output against the reference summaries in terms of content, as well as judging the system summary for coherence. The content comparison can be carried out at the level of individual words (matching words and phrases that are in common), or else at a syntactic or semantic level. Note that summarizers which produce abstracts often reformulate material from the input, changing its syntactic structure and semantic content – for example, by shrinking sentences, or by paraphrasing content. Clearly, the comparison of content must take into account relations such as synonymy as well as paraphrase, since a system summary may or may not use the same words as a reference summary.
今天,语音识别器是一种现成的商品,并被嵌入到各种日常应用中,包括通过电话访问商业服务、为听障人士转录语音、数字听写、自动多媒体信息访问(如搜索广播和电视新闻广播)、语音网络搜索以及忙碌环境中的各种用途。
Today, speech recognizers are an off-the-shelf commodity and are found embedded in a variety of day-to-day applications, including telephone access to business services, transcription of speech for the hearing-impaired, digital dictation, automatic multimedia information access (like searching of radio and TV news broadcasts), voice web search, and various uses in hands-busy environments.
您可能有过与语音识别器交互的经历,并惊讶于它能理解您——或者您可能在多次尝试后对其不准确感到恼火。语音识别的质量取决于许多因素。例如,识别对着高质量麦克风仔细说出的数字的系统将比试图识别办公室环境中多方对话中的自发语音的系统表现更好。
You may have had the experience of interacting with a speech recognizer and been surprised that it understood you – or you may have come away annoyed at its inaccuracy after repeated attempts. The quality of speech recognition depends on a number of factors. For example, a system that recognizes digits spoken carefully into a high-quality microphone will perform much better than one that tries to recognize spontaneous speech in multiparty conversations in an office setting.
单词发音方式的差异问题一直是语音识别范式从基于规则的处理向统计语言处理转变的主要推动力。语音识别器使用词典,该词典列出了词汇表中单词的发音,以音素序列表示。变体发音由音系规则以概率(加权)的形式生成 有限状态传感器。它们利用从语料库中获取的丰富统计信息(如单词不同发音的频率)来制定规则,以将各种声音组合识别为同一个单词。
The problem of variation in how words are pronounced has been a major force behind the paradigm shift away from rule-based processing and toward statistical language processing in speech recognition. A speech recognizer uses a dictionary that lists pronunciations for words in its vocabulary, expressed as sequences of phonemes. Variant pronunciations are generated by phonological rules in the form of probabilistic (weighted) finite-state transducers. They take advantage of the rich statistical information obtainable from a corpus (like the frequencies of different pronunciations of words) to produce rules for recognizing a variety of combinations of sounds as one and the same word.
语音识别器使用多个知识源:声学模型、发音模型和语言模型(后者起句法识别器的作用)。这三个模型中的规则的概率都是根据训练数据估算出来的。声学模型预测特定输入声波与特定音节序列匹配的可能性。发音模型使用声学模型的结果来预测特定音素序列与特定单词匹配的可能性。然后,语言模型预测发音模型识别的每个单词序列的概率。
A speech recognizer uses several knowledge sources: an acoustic model, a pronunciation model, and a language model (the latter functions as a syntactic recognizer). The rules in the three models have their probabilities estimated from training data. The acoustic model predicts the likelihood of a particular input sound wave matching a particular sequence of phonetic segments. The pronunciation model uses the acoustic model’s results to predict the likelihood of a particular sequence of phones matching a particular word. The language model then predicts the probability of each sequence of words identified by the pronunciation model.
语音合成系统通常以书面文本作为输入并产生语音。初始程序将文本标记为单词并对其进行预处理,以检测专有名称、数字、缩写等。形态消歧程序会筛选出拼写相同但发音不同的单词,例如read(过去时与现在时)词性标注可以在一定程度上帮助消除歧义,其中名词和动词(例如,contrast)以及动词和形容词(例如,intimate)之间的关键区别。标记化、预处理、词汇查找和形态分析程序的输出是文本的语音转录。下一步是将这种书面表示转换成实际的声音序列。为此,需要处理来自发音模型的声学信息以及计算表达语音元素序列的声音波形的音高、幅度和时间的数学程序。
Speech synthesis systems usually take written text as input and produce speech. Initial programs tokenize texts into words and preprocess them to detect proper names, numbers, abbreviations, and so on. Morphological disambiguation programs sort out words whose variants are spelled the same but pronounced differently, like read (past versus present tense). Some of this disambiguation can be helped by part-of-speech tagging, where the crucial distinction is between nouns and verbs (for example, contrast) and verbs and adjectives (for example, intimate). The output of the tokenization, preprocessing, lexical lookup, and morphological analysis programs is a phonetic transcription of the text. The next step is to transform this written representation into sequences of actual sounds. To do this, acoustic information from pronunciation models is processed along with mathematical procedures that calculate pitch, amplitude, and timing of the sound waveform expressing the sequence of phonetic elements.
为什么现在的语音合成器听起来这么“平淡”?语音合成中的一个关键问题是韵律的生成,即重音、音调和语调结构。在像“我能钓鱼”这样的句子中,这三个词中的任何一个都可能被重读,这取决于话语的重点。这些信息以及与韵律相关的许多其他信息对于合成器来说根本无法获得。在文本转语音系统中,计算机不知道它在说什么!
Why do current speech synthesizers sound so “flat”? A crucial problem in speech synthesis is the generation of prosody – that is, accent, pitch, and intonation structure. In a sentence like I can fish, any of the three words could be stressed, depending on the focus of the utterance. This information, and a lot of other information related to prosody, simply isn’t available to synthesizers. In a text-to-speech system, the computer doesn’t know what it’s talking about!
在添加一些韵律信息(例如,标准模式,如用于问题的升调)后,文本转语音系统中的信息被馈送到信号处理模块,该模块产生最终的音频输出。目前,该模块要么基于拼接合成,即将预先录制的语音(声音对)拼接在一起,要么基于通过音素单位定义的三元模型。
After some prosodic information is added (for example, standard patterns such as rising intonation for questions), the information in a text-to-speech system is fed to a signal processing module that produces the final audio output. Today, this module is based either on concatenative synthesis, where bits of prerecorded speech (pairs of sounds) are concatenated together, or on trigram models defined over phone units.
语音合成在许多应用中都很有价值,包括通过电话访问商业服务、为残疾人(盲人以及说话困难的人)提供帮助、教育、玩具、导航系统以及天气和紧急公告。
Speech synthesis is valuable in many applications, including telephone access to business services, aids for the disabled (blind people, as well as those who have difficulties speaking), education, toys, navigational systems, and weather and emergency bulletins.
机器翻译 (MT) 领域是计算语言学最古老的应用领域,可以追溯到冷战初期。1954 年,乔治城大学和 IBM 联合开发了一套俄语-英语机器翻译系统 (Dostert 1955 ),这是第一个实际运行的俄语-英语机器翻译系统的演示。该项目的工作与 Systran Babelfish 系统有着直接的联系,后者在网络上被广泛用于自动翻译网页。
The field of machine translation (MT) is the oldest application area of computational linguistics, dating back to the early years of the Cold War. One of the first demonstrations of a working Russian–English MT system was carried out in 1954 by a joint Georgetown–IBM system (Dostert 1955). There is a direct line of descent from work on that project to the Systran Babelfish system that is widely used on the Web to automatically translate web pages.
机器翻译是计算语言学最大的应用领域之一,每天有数百万份技术手册、办公材料和其他通信被翻译。与文学文本的翻译不同,文学文本的翻译需要译者发挥大量的创造力,而机器翻译则专注于尽可能保留源语言的信息内容,同时将其以自然形式呈现为目标语言。它的主要优势是经济,特别是当文本量大到人类无法翻译时。准确度较低的翻译可能足以获取某些外语源(例如新闻标题、搜索引擎结果或电子邮件消息)的要点,而为了获得更高质量的结果,通常需要人工对机器翻译进行后期编辑。
MT is one of the biggest application areas for computational linguistics, with millions of technical manuals, office materials, and other communications being translated daily. Unlike the translation of literary texts, where a considerable amount of creativity is required on the part of the translator, MT is focused on translations which preserve the information content of the source language as much as possible, while rendering it in a natural form in the target language. Its main advantages are economic, particularly when the volume of text is such that humans couldn’t possibly translate it. Lower-accuracy translations may be sufficient for getting the gist of some foreign language source (such as a news headline, search engine result, or email message), whereas for higher-quality results, post-editing of the machine translation by humans is often necessary.
机器翻译对计算语言学的许多领域都提出了挑战,因为它涉及理解一种语言的话语和生成另一种语言的话语。机器翻译系统都倾向于逐句翻译,除了少数例外,它们在翻译过程中忽略语境。通常,专有名词、数字、缩写和首字母缩略词、日期和时间将被标记并单独处理,因为将专有名词意外地翻译成常用词可能会产生令人尴尬的结果,例如,将德语文件中对前德国总理“科尔”的提及翻译成“卷心菜”。
MT poses challenges to many areas of computational linguistics, since it involves understanding of utterances in one language and generation of utterances in the other. MT systems all tend to translate sentence-by-sentence, and, with a few exceptions, do so while ignoring discourse context. Usually, proper names, numbers, abbreviations and acronyms, dates, and times will be flagged and separately processed, as translating a proper name accidentally as a common word can produce embarrassing results, for example, translating a reference in a German document to the former German Chancellor “Kohl” as “cabbage.”
机器翻译 (MT) 有三种常规方法:
There are three general approaches to MT:
大多数实际系统都使用直接或转移方法以及语料统计来实现更高的稳健性。
Most practical systems use a combination of a direct or transfer approach along with corpus statistics to achieve more robustness.
现在您应该已经了解了计算语言学的各种应用领域,以及语言知识在语音处理、信息提取、摘要和机器翻译系统中的不同使用方式。如果您准备好了,练习 14.7 –14.9 等着您!
You should now have a sense of various application areas of computational linguistics, and the very different ways linguistic knowledge is used in systems for speech processing, information extraction, summarization and machine translation. If you’re ready, Exercises 14.7–14.9 await you!
虽然计算机算法已经被很好地理解,但让计算机获取这些算法所需的一些语言和世界知识仍然是一项重大挑战,即使现在有非常大的语料库。处理语义和语用学的许多问题都依赖于计算机获取大量的语言和世界知识。为了说明这一点,让我们考虑一个简单的自然语言故事理解问题。考虑(13)中的短篇叙述:
While computer algorithms are very well understood, getting computers to acquire some of the linguistic and world knowledge needed by those algorithms is a major challenge, even with the very large corpora now available. Many of the problems in processing semantics and pragmatics depend on the computer acquiring vast amounts of linguistic and world knowledge. To illustrate, let us consider a simple problem of natural language story understanding. Consider the short narrative in (13):
| (13) |
昨天,霍莉在慢跑时扭伤了脚踝。 Yesterday, Holly was jogging when she twisted her ankle. 大卫推了她一下。她的脚踝疼得要命。 David pushed her. The ankle hurt like hell. |
人类可以通过使用动词时态(慢跑发生在过去的叙述中)和上下文(叙述发生的时间)中的信息来判断霍莉何时在慢跑,从而确定昨天所指的具体时间。人类还可以判断脚踝扭伤发生的时间(慢跑期间),推搡发生在扭伤之前,推搡导致扭伤,以及脚踝扭伤时开始疼痛。动词时态和体态(慢跑在语言上以进行时表示,扭伤发生时正在进行)显然很有帮助,但除此之外,人类还会根据从世界知识推断出的隐含信息进行推断。例如,需要世界知识来对推搡相对于扭伤进行排序,因为没有明确的语言“后”信号将推搡与扭伤联系起来。
A human being can tell when Holly was jogging, by using information from verb tense (the jogging was in the past, with respect to the narration) and context (when the narration was spoken) to resolve the specific time that yesterday refers to. He or she can also tell when the ankle twist occurred (during the jog), and that the pushing occurred before the twisting, that the pushing caused the twisting, and that the ankle started to hurt when she twisted it. Verb tense and aspect (the jogging, expressed linguistically as a progressive, was ongoing when the twisting happened) are clearly helpful, but in addition the human makes inferences based on implicit information inferred from world knowledge. For example, world knowledge is needed to order the pushing with respect to the twisting, since there is no explicit linguistic “after” signal linking the pushing to the twisting.
理解(13)这样的简单故事所需的大量有关时态、体和语篇关系的语言知识可以通过学习带注释的语料库获得。例如,一种名为 TimeML 的注释方案(Pustejovsky等人,2005 年)注释了故事中的事件及其时间关系。但是,构建此类带注释的语料库的成本很高。当前研究的一种策略是平衡信息的数量和质量:将未注释或无需人工监督自动注释(因此相对便宜)的大型语料库中的信息与人工监督注释的较小(但更昂贵)数据集中的信息相结合。
A great deal of the linguistic knowledge about tense, aspect, and discourse relations needed just to understand a simple story like (13) can come by learning from annotated corpora. For example, an annotation scheme called TimeML (Pustejovsky et al. 2005) annotates events and their temporal relations in stories. However, the costs of constructing such annotated corpora are high. One strategy of current research is to balance quantity and quality of information: information from large corpora that are unannotated or automatically annotated without human supervision (and therefore relatively inexpensive) is combined with information from smaller (but more expensive) sets of data that are annotated with human supervision.
推理对于计算机来说并不容易,而世界的常识,比如导致跌倒的原理,对于计算机来说很难从语料库中“学习”。手工构建的“常识”知识库开发成本非常高,而且必须针对每个新的应用领域手工细致地丰富它。信息提取方法可以获取有关世界的各种事实(或“事实”),但获取一个机器可解释的常识性知识库(更不用说生物学和医学等领域的专业知识)是一项艰巨的任务。计算语言学面临的许多剩余语言处理挑战都与表示人类对世界的认识的问题密切相关。在应对这些挑战的过程中,我们将更多地了解人类在使用自然语言交流时如何表示和推理这些知识。
Inferencing isn’t easy for the computer, and general knowledge of the world, such as the principle that pushes cause falls, is hard for a computer to “learn” from corpora. “Commonsense” knowledge bases built by hand are very expensive to develop and must be meticulously enriched by hand for each new application area. Information extraction methods can acquire various facts (or “factoids”) about the world, but acquiring a machine-interpretable knowledge base of commonsense knowledge (let alone specialized knowledge in areas like biology and medicine) is a formidable undertaking. Many of the remaining linguistic processing challenges facing computational linguistics are intimately tied to the problem of representing human beings’ knowledge of the world. In meeting these challenges, we will learn much more about how humans represent and reason with such knowledge while communicating in natural language.
本章讨论了让计算机处理人类语言的各种方法。该领域的发展部分源于人类语言中的模式与处理人工语言的系统的数学模型之间的基本关系。语言理论与计算表示和算法齐头并进,共同解决自然语言问题。
This chapter has discussed a variety of methods for getting computers to process human languages. The field is motivated in part by the fundamental relationship between patterns found in human languages and mathematical models of systems that process artificial languages. Linguistic theories go hand-in-hand with computational representations and algorithms to address natural language problems.
计算语言学目前取得的成功很大程度上归功于大量在线数据的可用性,这些数据可以非常快速地处理。这导致了统计方法的使用,取代了一些早期涉及手工创建的语言使用模型的方法。这些统计方法的成功——以及它们提供的大量新经验数据——为许多当前的语言理论提出了根本问题。
The current success of computational linguistics is due in large part to the availability of large quantities of online data that can be processed very quickly. This has led to the use of statistical approaches, displacing some of the earlier approaches that involved hand-created models of linguistic usage. The success of these statistical approaches – and the wealth of new empirical data they provide – pose fundamental questions for many current linguistic theories.
虽然计算机算法和统计模型已被充分理解,但让计算机获取所需的大量语言和世界知识仍然是一项重大挑战。语言知识获取面临着高昂的注释成本,而世界知识的获取仍然几乎完全是一个手动过程。
While computer algorithms and statistical models are very well understood, getting computers to acquire the vast amounts of linguistic and world knowledge needed remains a major challenge. Linguistic knowledge acquisition faces high annotation costs, while acquisition of world knowledge is still an almost entirely manual process.
画出前面讨论的自上而下解析器将对 (8d) 执行的下一组扩展。哪些可以扩展?是否有任何扩展会导致立即陷入死胡同?
Draw the next set of expansions that the top-down parser discussed earlier will carry out on (8d). Which ones can be expanded? Do any lead to immediate dead ends?
这是本章开头提到的日语句子 (1) 的英语翻译的解析树。(请注意,它比我们之前看到的解析树稍微复杂一些,因为它包含一个非终端类别 Nom 作为 NPs 的组成部分。)
Here is a parse tree for the English translation of the Japanese sentence (1) mentioned at the start of this chapter. (Note that it is a little more complicated than the parse trees we saw before, because it includes a nonterminal category Nom as a component of NPs.)
提供三个例子,说明将专有名词意外翻译成常用词可能会产生令人尴尬的后果。
Provide three examples where translating a proper name accidentally as a common word can produce embarrassing results.
看看你能从 (5) 中的上下文无关语法生成多少个合乎语法的句子。它允许你生成任何不合语法的句子吗?现在只需向语法中添加三个单词:N → beans,V → eat,代词→ you。你还能生成多少个句子?(不要忘记原始单词可能有许多新的组合。)
See how many grammatical sentences you can generate from the context-free grammar in (5). Does it allow you to generate any ungrammatical sentences? Now add just three words to the grammar: N → beans, V → eat, Pronoun → you. How many more sentences can you generate? (Don’t forget the many new combinations possible with the original words.)
为什么英语单词表(或词典)可能不完整?请举出大多数英语词典中不太可能出现的某个单词或短语及其词性的例子。
Why is a word list (or lexicon) for English likely to be incomplete? Give an example of a particular word or phrase and its part of speech that is not likely to be in most English lexicons.
图 14.1中的新闻报道中的哪些语言信息可被计算机用来推断雷纳尔多是巴西公民?新闻报道中的哪些信息可帮助计算机推断他是国际米兰俱乐部的成员?
What linguistic information in the news story in Figure 14.1 could be used by a computer to infer that Renaldo is a citizen of Brazil? What information in the story would be pertinent to the computer inferring that he is a member of Inter Milan?
考虑以下四十五个字的句子:
Consider the following forty-five-word sentence:
迁移方法(应用最为广泛的方法)构建源语言句子的中间句法或语义表示,然后将其映射到目标语言的句法或语义表示,从而生成目标语言句子。
A transfer approach (which is the most widely used) builds an intermediate syntactic or semantic representation of the sentence in the source language, and then maps it to a syntactic or semantic representation in the target language, from which a target language sentence is generated.
把这个句子浓缩成不超过三十个单词。你删除了哪些语言信息,进行了哪些句法或语义重组?
Condense this sentence into one of no more than thirty words. What sorts of linguistic information did you remove, and what syntactic or semantic reorganization did you carry out?
在 YouTube 上观看提供自动转录的纪录片(例如通过“转录”图标)。您能检测自动转录中的错误并用语音识别软件来解释它们吗?哪些错误最有可能归因于声学模型、发音模型和语言模型?
View a documentary on YouTube that provides an automatic transcript (e.g. via the ‘transcript’ icon). Can you detect errors in the automatic transcript and explain them in terms of speech recognition software? Which errors are most likely to be attributable to the acoustic model, to the pronunciation model, and to the language model?
一种书写系统,其中仅用字母表示辅音,而元音则可选择用变音符号标记(即辅音字母表)。
A writing system in which only consonants are represented by letters and vowels are optionally marked by diacritics (i.e. a consonantal alphabet).
词根中的元音变化表示语法对比,例如speak/spoke。
A vowel change in a root that signals a grammatical contrast, e.g. speak/spoke.
发音,尤其是与特定地区或社会群体相关的发音。
Pronunciation, especially that associated with a particular regional or social group.
对某种语言的母语人士和非母语人士进行的测试,询问某些句子在该语言中是否可以接受。
Tests given to both native and non-native speakers of a particular language, asking whether certain sentences are acceptable in that language.
动词的直接宾语(有时是介词的宾语)的情况;谁或什么正在做某事。
The case of the direct object of a verb (sometimes the object of a preposition); who or what is having something done to it.
一种在海马体、陈述性记忆和词汇学习中发挥重要作用的神经递质。
A neurotransmitter that plays important roles in the hippocampus, in declarative memory, and in word learning.
从单词、表意文字或象形文字的首音派生出字母。
Derivation of a letter from the first sound of a word, logogram, or pictogram.
发声器官在声道内移动,产生收缩。
Articulators that move in the vocal tract to create a constriction.
通过言语执行的有序的动作序列(参见言语行为)。
An ordered sequence of actions performed through speech (see speech acts).
急性病变是由突然损伤(例如中风或头部创伤)引起的病变。
Acute lesions are those caused by sudden damage (e.g. from stroke or head trauma).
用借用语言中最接近的语音来替换借用词中的外来声音。
The replacement of foreign sounds occurring in loan words by their nearest phonetic equivalents in the borrowing language.
一对话语,其中第一部分(例如问题、问候)对下一部分(例如答案、第二次问候)建立了如此强烈的期待,以至于如果下一部分没有发生,就会有某些东西“缺失”。
A pair of utterances in which the first part (e.g. a question, a greeting) sets up so strong an expectation for the next part (e.g. an answer, a second greeting) that something is “missing” if the next part does not occur.
一种合并类型,通过这种合并,除了中心词、补语或修饰语之外的短语会被添加到其他短语中。附加涉及将添加修饰语的短语节点扩展为两个片段。
A type of merger by which phrases, other than heads, complements, or specifiers are added to other phrases. Adjunction involves expanding to two segments the phrasal node to which the modifiers are being added.
情感“障碍”(如自我意识或尴尬)会阻碍语言习得过程。根据克拉申的说法,必须“提升”(即移除)情感过滤器,才能进行语言学习。
The emotional “blocks” (such as self-consciousness or embarrassment) that can hinder the language acquisition process. According to Krashen, the affective filter must be “raised” (i.e. removed) in order for language learning to occur.
附着于词基上以某种方式改变词基的粘着词素,例如在单词 dehydratedifiers中,词缀为de -、- ify、-er和-s。
A bound morpheme that attaches to a base to alter it in some way, e.g. in the word dehumidifiers, the affixes are de-, -ify, -er, and -s.
美国许多非裔美国人使用的语言变体。也称为黑人英语;尽管黑人英语被认为是一种非常统一的方言,但它确实在不同地区、社会阶层、性别和年龄群体以及不同说话风格之间表现出差异。
The language variety spoken by many African Americans in the US. Also called Ebonics; although considered to be a very uniform dialect, AAE does show variation across regional, social class, gender, and age groups, as well as across different speech styles.
在特定的人生阶段暂时使用的语言特征,例如尚未进入劳动力市场的青少年和年轻人大量使用俚语。
Language features used temporarily during a particular life stage, for example, the heavy use of slang by teenagers and young adults who have not yet entered the workforce.
语法障碍。语法不通的言语在句法和形态上被简化。语法不通的言语患者通常还患有接受性语法不通,即难以使用句法结构来理解句子的含义。
Impairments of grammar. Agrammatic speech is syntactically and morphologically simplified. Patients with agrammatic speech often also have receptive agrammatism, i.e. difficulties using syntactic structure to understand the meaning of sentences.
一种语法匹配关系,其中一个或多个词的形式发生屈折,以表示与另一个词的一个或多个特征的对应关系,例如在西班牙语名词短语una amiga americana “一个(女性)美国朋友”中,限定词una和形容词americana都发生屈折,以与名词amiga的阴性和单数一致。
A grammatical matching relation in which the form of one or more words is inflected to signal a correspondence with one or more features of another word, e.g. in the Spanish noun phrase una amiga americana ‘a (female) American friend’ both the determiner una and adjective americana are inflected to agree with the feminine gender and singular number of the noun amiga.
在特定条件环境中出现的词素的变体发音,例如英语否定前缀-可能发音为 [ ɪ n]、[ ɪ m] 或 [ ɪŋ ],具体取决于它所附加的词根的首音,例如inescapable、ispossible、incapable(分别)。
A variant pronunciation of a morpheme that appears in a particular conditioning environment, e.g. the English negative prefix in- may be pronounced as [ɪn], [ɪm], or [ɪŋ] depending on the first sound of the base it attaches to, e.g. inescapable, impossible, incapable (respectively).
仅产生音位变体,而不改变音素库的结构组织的声音变化。
A sound change that produces only allophones and does not change the structural organization of the phonemic inventory of sounds.
由表示口语的辅音和元音的符号组成的文字。
A script consisting of symbols for the consonants and vowels of a spoken language.
当同一个词素根据上下文以不同的方式发音时,就会显露出两个音位变体之间的对应关系。
Correspondence between two allophones revealed when the same morpheme is pronounced in different ways depending on the context.
通过舌尖或舌叶收缩抵住齿槽嵴而发出的音。
Sound made with a constriction of the tongue tip or blade against the alveolar ridge.
一种神经退行性疾病,以严重记忆丧失为特征,还会导致语言和其他认知缺陷。
A neurodegenerative disease marked by severe memory loss, and also resulting in language and other cognitive deficits.
如果一个单词、短语或句子具有多重含义,则会产生歧义。
A word, phrase, or sentence is ambiguous if it has multiple meanings.
参见贬义。
See pejoration.
通过(过度)概括现有模式来修改或创建语言形式。
The modification or creation of linguistic forms by (over)generalization of an existing pattern.
没有自己的指称,但从前面的单词或短语中获得其意义的词;在约束理论中,像她自己这样的表达,需要指称其子句的主语。
A word that does not have its own reference but derives its meaning from a preceding word or phrase; in Binding Theory, an expression, like herself, that is required to refer to the subject of its clause.
无法形成新的长期记忆,导致对病情发作以来发生的事情缺乏认识。
The inability to form new long-term memories, resulting in a lack of awareness of what has occurred since the onset of the condition.
脑损伤后失去表达和/或接受语言能力。
The loss of expressive and/or receptive language abilities following brain damage.
某一特定社区中不同世代说话者的语言数据;通常可用于推断语言的变化过程。
Language data from different generations of speakers in a given community at a single moment in time; can often be used to infer language changes in progress.
一种语音,其中发声器官使声道变窄,但并不至于产生摩擦音。
A speech sound in which the articulators narrow the vocal tract, but not so much so that fricative noise is created.
词尾的一个声音(通常是元音)的删除或丢失。
A kind of deletion or loss of a sound, usually a vowel, at the end of a word.
社会认可的测量体系或行为方式,也可能轻易改变。
A socially agreed-on system of measurement or way of behaving that could as easily be otherwise.
充斥着谓语、主语、宾语或间接宾语的单词或短语。
A word or phrase which saturates a predicate; a subject, object, or indirect object.
人类语言的一个基本属性,即词的形式(发音)和其含义之间没有内在关系。
A fundamental property of human language whereby there is no intrinsic relationship between the form of a word (how it sounds) and its meaning.
一种语法类别,表示动作或状态的某些时间属性,例如它是已完成、正在进行、习惯性还是迭代性。一个基本区别是完成体(时间上有限、已完成)和未完成体(无限、正在进行)表达。例如,在英语中,所谓的“进行体”(一种未完成体)在动词上用后缀 -ing 标记,例如John was painting the kitchen。
A grammatical category that indicates some temporal property of an action or state such as whether it is completed, ongoing, habitual, or iterative. One basic distinction is between perfective (temporally bounded, completed) and imperfective (unbounded, ongoing) expressions. In English, for example, the so-called “progressive” form (a kind of imperfective aspect) is marked on the verb by the suffix -ing, as in John was painting the kitchen.
根据句子所描述的情况随时间如何展开对句子进行分类。
A classification of sentences in terms of how the situation they describe unfolds in time.
由于喉部保持打开,在释放塞音辅音的闭合后,会产生额外的气流。
Extra airflow, due to the larynx remaining open, after the release of closure for a stop consonant.
1. 一种音系交替,其中两个不同的声音变得更加相似。 2. 一种历时过程,其中声音朝邻近声音的方向变化,其中两个声音变得更加相似。异化与同化相反,其中两个声音变得不那么相似。
1. A phonological alternation in which two sounds that are different become more alike. 2. A diachronic process by which a sound changes in the direction of a nearby sound, in which two sounds become more alike. Dissimilation is the opposite of assimilation, in which two sounds become less alike.
一种基于行为主义原则的第二语言教学方法,该方法认为语言学习的本质是习惯的养成,需要模仿、死记硬背、大量练习以及老师的大量纠正。
An approach to teaching second languages, based on the principles of behaviorism, which claimed that language learning was essentially habit formation, requiring mimicry, rote memorization, and extensive drills with lots of correction from teachers.
一种在生命早期出现的发育障碍,以一系列缺陷为特征,包括语言和社交互动问题。
A developmental disorder that appears early in life and is marked by a range of deficits, including problems with language and social interaction.
将文本精简为其最重要点的连贯摘要的过程。
The process of reducing a text to a coherent summary of its most important points.
音系形式主义,其中的特征被视为独立于音段串的独立部分。
Phonological formalism in which features are treated as autonomous from the string of segments.
to be用作进行时动词形式的一部分,如“ She is running”或“We were eating”。
The use of to be as part of a progressive verb form, as in She is running or We were eating.
婴儿从大约四个月大开始出现语言前发声行为;通常由简单音节(例如妈妈)组成,后来由不同音节的序列组成(例如妈妈爸爸)。
Prelinguistic vocal behavior produced by infants beginning at about four months of age; typically consists of simple syllables (e.g. ma ma) and later by sequences of different syllables (e.g. ma ba da).
语义内容很少(或没有)的动词,例如“嗯”和“嗯”,听众用这些动词表示他们正在倾听、注意听,和/或愿意继续把发言权交给说话者。
Verbalizations with little (or no) semantic content, such as mhm and uhuh, by which listeners signal that they are listening, paying attention, and/or willing to continue ceding the floor to a speaker.
通过从较长的单词中去除词缀来形成较短的单词。
The formation of a shorter word by removing an affix from a longer word.
在两种语言的所有领域都具有相同和母语能力的个人。
Individuals who have identical and native competence in all areas of both languages.
脑部深处一组高度互联的结构。这些结构包括壳核、尾状核、苍白球和黑质。基底神经节通常与运动功能有关,但也与语言有关。
A group of highly interconnected structures deep in the brain. These structures include the putamen, the caudate nucleus, the globus pallidus, and the substantia nigra. The basal ganglia are usually associated with motor functions but are also involved in language.
任何可以应用词形运算(如词缀、重复等)来产生另一种形式的形式,例如hydrify是派生词hydrify的词根(也是词根) ,而hydrify又是派生词hydrifier的词根(但不是词根) ,而 hydrifier 又是屈折形式hydrifiers的词根。屈折形式的词根也常称为词干。
Any form to which a morphological operation applies, such as affixation, reduplication, etc. to yield another form, e.g. humid is the base (and also the root) for the derived word humidify, and humidify is in turn the base (but not the root) for the derived word humidifier, which in turn is the base for the inflected form humidifiers. The base for inflected forms is also often called a stem.
发生在两侧,即大脑或小脑的两个半球。
Taking place on both sides, i.e. in both hemispheres of the cerebrum or the cerebellum.
一组三项原则,用于确定指代词、代词和名称的允许和禁止的共指模式。
A set of three principles that determine permitted and forbidden coreference patterns for anaphors, pronouns, and names.
与生物功能相关的化学物质(例如神经递质)。
Relating to chemicals involved in biological functions (e.g. neurotransmitters).
与心理功能的各种生物(基因、分子、神经元、大脑结构等)、认知和计算相关因素有关。
Relating to the various biological (genes, molecules, neurons, brain structures, and so on), cognitive, and computational correlates of mental functions.
在实时处理给定任务或认知功能过程中生物活动的模式(例如基因、神经递质、神经元、大脑结构等)。心理处理过程中生物活动随时间变化的视觉表现。
The pattern of biological activity (e.g. of genes, neurotransmitters, neurons, brain structures, etc.) during the real-time processing of a given task or cognitive function. The visual representation of biological activity through time during mental processing.
学习语言的过程,其中儿童使用某一语言领域的技能来发展其他领域的能力。
Process of learning language in which the child uses skills in one area of language to develop competencies in other areas.
将一种语言或方言的元素融入另一种语言或方言。
The adoption of elements from one language or dialect into another.
应用于词素时,表示词素必须附加到词基上,例如,单词“singing”中的词缀-ing。
Applied to morphemes, a term indicating that a morpheme must be attached to a base, e.g. an affix such as -ing in the word singing.
词义范围的扩大。相反,词义范围缩小,词义范围减小,含义也不再那么笼统。
An increase in the range of meaning of a word. The reverse of this is narrowing, in which the range of meaning of a word decreases and becomes less general.
一种以语法缺失为特征的失语症,与布罗卡区损伤有关(但损伤不仅限于布罗卡区)。
A type of aphasia marked by agrammatism, and associated with damage to Broca’s region (though not with damage limited to Broca’s area alone).
大脑语言区是典型的大脑语言区,由额下回的岛叶部分和三角部分组成,这两个部分又分别与布罗德曼的 44 区和 45 区相对应。该区域以法国科学家保罗·布罗卡 (Paul Broca) 的名字命名,他首次提出该区域与语言有关。
A classical brain language area consisting of the opercular part and the triangular part of the inferior frontal gyrus – which in turn correspond largely to Brodmann’s areas 44 and 45, respectively. The area is named for the French scientist Paul Broca, who first suggested its involvement in language.
在语言中发挥重要作用的大脑区域。一般认为它由布罗卡区和某些邻近区域组成,包括额下回的眶部(布罗德曼区 47)和额岛叶。
A brain region that plays important roles in language. It is generally taken to comprise Broca’s area and certain nearby regions, including the orbital part of the inferior frontal gyrus (Brodmann’s area 47) and the frontal operculum.
这是 Korbinian Brodmann 于 20 世纪初绘制的细胞构架图中的大脑区域之一。
One of the brain areas from the cytoarchitectonic map developed by Korbinian Brodmann in the early 1900s.
名词和代词上标记的一种语法类别,表示它们在句子中的作用,如主语、直接宾语或间接宾语,或与另一个名词的关系,例如其所有者。格标记出现在英语代词上 - 以区分,例如,I、me和my 的形式。
A grammatical category marked on nouns and pronouns that indicates their role in a sentence such as subject, direct object, or indirect object, or in relation to another noun, as, for example, its possessor. Case marking appears on pronouns in English – distinguishing, for example, the forms I, me, and my.
舌体既不向前也不向后移动的元音。
Vowel sound for which the tongue body moves neither forward nor back.
位于大脑后部下方的脑部部分。尽管小脑长期以来被认为与运动有关,但现在已清楚小脑也是记忆、语言和其他功能的基础。
The part of the brain beneath the back of the cerebrum. Although the cerebellum has long been implicated in movement, it is now clear that it also underlies memory, language, and other functions.
一系列相互关联、相互依赖的声音变化。
A series of sound changes which are connected and depend upon one another.
针对婴儿和儿童的特殊言语类型,包括夸张的语调、更简单的句子结构以及对“此时此地”的强调。
The special type of speech that is directed towards infants and children, which includes exaggerated intonation, simpler sentence structures, and an emphasis on the “here and now.”
按照复杂性层次对形式语言进行排序。
An ordering of formal languages in terms of a complexity hierarchy.
耳蜗中的毛细胞与神经细胞相连,刺激神经细胞可产生听觉。
Hair cells in the cochlea, connected to nerve cells, stimulation of which results in hearing.
一种围绕词根的词缀(既作为前缀又作为后缀出现),例如德语过去分词形式ge-t在单词ge-zeig-t‘shown ’ 中的。
A type of affix that surrounds a base (appearing as both a prefix and suffix), e.g. the German past participle form ge-t in the word ge-zeig-t ‘shown.’
一种词素,用于在语法上个别化名词或指定语言中的名词子类,通常基于名词的某些语义属性。 在汉语普通话例子中,w ǔ -ge rén “五个人”和nèi -zh ā ng zhîé “那张纸”中,后缀-ge和-zhang是分别指定人的单位和纸的单位的分类词。
A morpheme that is used to grammatically individuate mass nouns or specify a subclass of nouns in a language, often on the basis of some semantic property of the noun. In the Mandarin Chinese examples wǔ -ge rén ‘five persons’ and nèi -zhāng zhîé ‘that (sheet of) paper,’ the suffixes -ge and -zhang are classifiers which specify units of people and paper, respectively.
对尾音中可出现的辅音的类型或数量的限制。
Restriction on the type or number of consonants that can occur in the coda.
说话者在对话过程中似乎毫无区别地从一种语言切换到另一种语言。
Speakers’ switching from one language to another during a conversation seemingly without discrimination.
双语者为了象征性、战略性或交流性的目的而有意使用多种语言。
The intentional use of more than one language by bilinguals for symbolic, strategic, or communicative purposes.
两种或多种姊妹语言中的词汇,均源自母语中的一个常用词汇。
Words in two or more sister languages which are descended from a common word in the parent language.
话语的整体意义源于 (a) 一系列话语内部的关系,以及 (b) 这些话语与其上下文之间的关系。
The overall sense of a discourse that results from relationships (a) within a sequence of utterances and (b) between those utterances and their context.
文本中的统一感,是由将文本中的当前点与文本中的先前点连接起来的语言产生的。
A sense of unity within a text that results from language that connects a current point in the text to a prior point in the text.
语言的某些方面(例如代词、重复、省略)假定与文本先前的某些部分存在关系。
Aspects of language (e.g. pronouns, repetition, ellipsis) that presuppose a relationship with some prior part of a text.
对话参与者视为无可争议的真实的一组命题。
The set of propositions which the participants in a conversation treat as uncontroversially true.
人们所掌握的知识,大部分都低于意识层面,即在他们的母语和文化中,什么是适合或不适合完成交流任务的方式。
The knowledge people have, most of it below the level of awareness, of what is and is not a culturally appropriate way to carry out a communicative task in their native language and culture.
这是当今教授第二语言的最常用方法之一,强调交流是促进所有四项技能(说、听、读、写)发展的一种手段,并强调学生需要能够 以语言和文化上适当的方式产生语言,以实现具有有意义的目的的交流功能。
One of the most commonly employed approaches to teaching second languages today, highlighting communication as a means of facilitating language development of all four skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) and emphasizing that students need to be able to produce language in linguistically and culturally appropriate ways to carry out communicative functions with meaningful purposes.
一种教授第二语言的方法,注重社交互动以及学习中的情感和人际因素;教师充当辅导员,帮助学习者更加独立地使用目标语言表达自己的想法。
An approach to teaching second languages which focuses on social interaction and affective and interpersonal factors in learning; teachers act as counsellors to help learners become more independent in using the target language to express their own thoughts.
通过对同源词的比较和分析来重建原始语言的一种方法。
A method employed in the reconstruction of a protolanguage from a comparison and analysis of cognates.
由于大脑中通常负责执行某项功能的部分受损,因此需要依靠通常不参与执行某项功能的大脑结构来执行该项功能。类似地,如果您失去了双手,您可以使用双脚来抓握等来弥补。
A reliance on brain structures not usually involved in a function, in order to perform that function, as a result of damage to those parts of the brain that normally underlie the function. By analogy, if you lose your hands, you may compensate by using your feet to grasp, etc.
延长元音以补偿另一个音节的丢失。
The lengthening of a vowel to compensate for the loss of another segment.
短语的一个分支,其类别由其中心词决定,另一个短语会合并到该分支中。补语补充了其所指短语的中心词的含义。
A branch of a phrase, with a category determined by its head, into which another phrase is merged. The complement completes the meaning of the head of the phrase of which it is the complement.
每个说话者的语言行为都会促使其他人采取越来越夸张的对立行为形式,形成一个不断扩大的螺旋。
The process by which each speaker’s linguistic behavior drives the other to increasingly exaggerated forms of an opposing behavior, in an ever-widening spiral.
引导从句(通常是嵌入从句)的 元素,如英语中的元素。
An element, such as that in English, that introduces a clause, often an embedded clause.
以补语为中心,以词形变化短语为补语的短语。
A phrase headed by a complementizer and taking an Inflection Phrase as its complement.
语法原理是,短语和小句由其他短语和小句组成,其中最小的短语和小句是由从心理词汇中提取的单词投射而来的。
The principle of grammar by which phrases and clauses are made up of other phrases and clauses, the smallest of which are projected from words drawn from the mental lexicon.
一种表示意义的方法,其中整体的意义是各部分意义的函数。因此,句子的意义是其成分意义的数学函数,直至单个词汇项的意义。
An approach to representing meaning where the meaning of the whole is a function of the meaning of the parts. Thus, the meaning of a sentence is a mathematical function of the meaning of its constituents, down to the meanings of the individual lexical items.
将两个或多个单词组合起来得到一个新单词,例如toenail。
The combining of two or more words to derive a new word, e.g. toenail.
最初由 Krashen 提出,这指的是学习者能够理解的输入(即针对学习者的语言)。
Originally introduced by Krashen, this refers to the input (i.e. language addressed to the learner) that the learner can understand.
与概念的含义有关,包括与词语相关的概念(例如生物、家具、锤子)。
Having to do with the meanings of concepts, including concepts associated with words (e.g. living thing, furniture, hammer).
动词的语气,表达依赖于某些其他情况的假设或不确定的状态或事件。
The mood of a verb that expresses a hypothetical or uncertain state or event, dependent upon some other circumstance.
两类或多类动词中的一类,其特征是一组在某些方面与另一类动词不同的屈折形式。例如,在西班牙语中,动词分为三个主要类别,这反映在不定式后缀中 - ar(第一变位,例如trabajar “工作”),- er(第二变位,例如comer “吃”)或 - ir(第三变位,例如abrir “打开”)。
One of two or more classes of verbs distinguished by a set of inflectional forms that differs in some respect from that of verbs in another class. In Spanish, for example, verbs are grouped into three main classes reflected in the infinitive suffixes -ar (first conjugation, e.g. trabajar ‘to work’), -er (second conjugation, e.g. comer ‘to eat’), or -ir (third conjugation, e.g. abrir ‘to open’).
一种用于研究心智和大脑的方法,它将语言和其他心理功能建模为通过多个相互连接的单元进行的统计学习而产生的。
An approach used in the study of the mind and brain that models language and other mental functions as emerging from statistical learning that takes place over multiple interconnected units.
功能为描述事实的句子;与施事句相比。
A sentence whose function is to describe a fact; compare with performative.
根据与属于同一语义场的其他词语的频繁关联性对词语进行重塑。
The reshaping of a word on the basis of frequent association with some other word belonging to the same semantic field.
在句子中起表达含义主要作用的词,例如名词、动词和形容词。
Words that play a primary role in expressing meaning in a sentence, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
一类语法,其中每个语法规则都采用 A → B的形式,其中 A 是单个非终结符,B 是零个或多个终结符和非终结符的序列。上下文无关语法可以表示中心嵌入句子的结构,例如The little puppy the boy the principal hated loved ran away。
A family of grammars where each grammar rule is of the form A → B, where A is a single nonterminal and B is a sequence of zero or more terminals and nonterminals. Context-free grammars can represent the structure of center-embedded sentences, such as The little puppy the boy the principal hated loved ran away.
产生单词、短语或句子的语言环境或社会环境。
The linguistic or social environment in which a word, phrase, or sentence is produced.
副语言特征和韵律特征表明应该如何解释所说的话。
The paralinguistic and prosodic features that signal how the words spoken are to be interpreted.
有假设认为,语言学习困难可能归因于 L1 和 L2 之间的差异。
The hypothesis that difficulties in language learning may be attributed to differences between the L1 and L2.
两种或多种方法或手段的证据得出了相似的结论(例如,fMRI 成像和病变研究表明同一大脑区域参与了特定的语言功能)。
Evidence from two or more approaches or methods resulting in similar conclusions (e.g. fMRI imaging and lesion studies implicating the same brain region in a particular language function).
特定文化中的说话者期望对话遵循的话语序列。
The sequence of utterances that speakers in a given culture expect conversation to follow.
婴儿发出的类似元音的声音,通常被理解为愉快和嬉戏的表现。
Vowel-like sounds of very young infants which are generally interpreted as signs of pleasure and playfulness.
对话中两个说话者同时讲话,第二位说话者也同时讲话,以显示热情的倾听,而不是打断。
Two speakers talking at once in a conversation where the second speaker talks along in order to show enthusiastic listenership, not to interrupt.
一种递归设备,允许在同一结构级别上链接单词、短语或从句,使用诸如and和but 之类的协调器。
A recursive device allowing the linking of words, phrases, or clauses at the same level of structure, using coordinators like and and but.
格赖斯提出的观点是,人们在理解语言时,首先要假设说话者的行为是理性且合作的。
The idea, suggested by Grice, that people understand language in light of the assumption that the speaker is behaving rationally and cooperatively.
将to be用作连系动词,如“他很好”或“他们饿了”。
The use of to be as a linking verb, as in He is nice or They are hungry.
作为具有特定语言特征的样本创建的语言数据集合。
A collection of linguistic data created as a sample with particular linguistic characteristics.
对话者针对学习者非目标类型的话语提供正确的形式。
An interlocutor’s provision of the correct form in response to a learner’s non-targetlike utterance.
大脑的最外层,主要由神经元细胞体组成。
The outermost layer of the cerebrum, consisting largely of neuronal cell bodies.
不同语言接触产生的一种语言,通常是在使用这些语言的说话者群体之间权力不平等的情况下产生的。随着时间的推移,这种洋泾浜语的语法变得更加复杂,并成为某个语言群体的母语。
A language that arises from contact between different languages, often in situations of unequal power between the groups of speakers who use the languages. A pidgin which over time becomes grammatically more complex and becomes the mother language of a speech community.
重建原始语言形式的一种策略,该策略选择大多数相关语言中的同源词支持的声音分析或重建。
A strategy for reconstructing forms in a protolanguage which selects an analysis or a reconstruction of sounds which is supported by cognates in a majority of related languages.
该假设认为,语言学习必须在一定年龄(通常是青春期)之前进行,才能将语言学习到与母语人士相当的水平。
The hypothesis that language learning must occur before a certain age (usually puberty) in order for the language to be learned to a native-like level.
研究人员同时且比较地调查不同主题(例如男性和女性,或英语和日语使用者)的一种研究类型。
A type of study in which the researcher investigates different subjects simultaneously and comparatively (e.g. males and females, or English and Japanese speakers).
一种由在软粘土上通过组合楔形印记而形成的符号组成的文字。
A script consisting of symbols made by combinations of wedge-shaped impressions in soft clay.
不敬或轻率地使用宗教术语,或者使用与性或猥亵功能相关的禁忌表达。
The irreverent or frivolous use of religious terms or the use of taboo expressions related to sexual or scatological functions.
大脑区域的细胞组成,即神经元的类型和分布。
The cellular makeup – i.e. the types and distribution of neurons – of a brain area.
记忆系统,用于记忆事实和个人经历。有证据表明,这些知识大部分(尽管不是全部)可以被意识所利用。
The memory system for knowledge of facts and personal experiences. Evidence suggests that this knowledge is largely, though not completely, available to conscious awareness.
计算策略指的是语言数据而不是程序或处理策略。
A computational strategy that refers to linguistic data and not to procedures or processing strategies.
当名词具有(一个或多个)特定的所指对象并且假定听者可识别时;在英语中用冠词the表示。
When a noun has (a) particular referent(s) assumed to be identifiable by the listener; in English indicated by the article the.
如果没有额外的上下文信息就无法理解其所指的单词或短语;例如,“我”的所指取决于说话者是谁。
A word or phrase whose referent cannot be understood without additional contextual information; for example, the referent of I depends on who is speaking.
1. 删除语法结构中的一个元素,有时是移动后留下的元素的副本。删除受到通用语法的严格限制。2. 单词中部分元素的历时性丢失。
1. The removal of an element in a grammatical structure, sometimes the copy of an element left behind by movement. Deletion is tightly restricted by Universal Grammar. 2. Diachronic loss of segments from a word.
舌尖或舌叶接触上牙时发出的声音。
Sound made by bringing the tongue tip or blade into contact with the upper teeth.
情态与根据规则、道德等哪些可能性比其他可能性更好有关。
Modality having to do with what possibilities are better than others according to rules, morality, etc.
1. 应用一系列音系规则将底层表征转换为表层表征。2. 通过词缀、重复、复合等方式修改现有词根,形成新词的过程。派生出的词可能属于另一个词汇类别,或具有不同的含义,或两者兼而有之;例如,动词hydrify是由形容词hydration通过添加 -ify 词缀而派生出来的。
1. Application of a sequence of phonological rules to convert an underlying representation into a surface representation. 2. The process of forming a new word by modifying an existing base via affixation, reduplication, compounding, etc. The derived word may belong to another lexical category or have a different meaning, or both; e.g. the verb humidify is derived from the adjective humid by the affixation of -ify.
从现有词中创建新词(例如,名词Toughness由形容词Tough创造)。
The creation of new words from existing ones (e.g. the noun toughness from the adjective tough).
一种观察和分析语言实际使用方式的实证方法。
An empirical approach which observes and analyzes how language is actually spoken.
象形文字系统中的符号,添加于单词末尾以阐明其含义。
Symbols in hieroglyphic systems that were added at the end of a word to clarify its meaning.
限制名词指称的句法类别;包括冠词、指示词、所有格代词和所有格词素。
A syntactic category that limits the reference of a noun; includes articles, demonstratives, possessive pronouns, and the possessive morpheme’s.
以限定词为中心,如英语中的the或a,以名词短语为补语的短语。
A phrase headed by a determiner, such as the or a in English, taking a Noun Phrase as its complement.
一种语言而非方言的地位标准,基于有意识的努力来标准化并鼓励语言多样性的文学活动。
A criterion for status as a language rather than a dialect based on conscious efforts to standardize, and encourage literary activity in, a linguistic variety.
L2 学习者在习得第二语言的过程中经历的一系列可识别的阶段。
A series of identifiable stages that L2 learners pass through in acquiring the second language.
语言学学科,旨在解释语言如何随时间而变化。又称历史语言学。
The discipline of linguistics which seeks to explain how languages change over time. Also known as historical linguistics.
添加到音标的标记,以进一步指定其值(例如,指示音节或辅音模板中的元音)。
A mark added to a phonetic symbol to further specify its value (e.g. to indicate the vowel(s) in a syllable or consonantal template).
1. 语言的几种可区分变体之一,通常(但并非总是)可以相互理解。方言具有语言各个层面的特征,包括词汇、音系、形态句法和语用。语言学家用这个术语来指代任何语言变体,无论其社会地位如何。2. 没有标准化或出版文献的语言变体。
1. One of several distinguishable varieties, generally (but not always) mutually intelligible, of a language. A dialect has features on all levels of language, including lexical, phonological, morphosyntactic, and pragmatic. Linguists use this term to refer to any language variety, regardless of its social status. 2. A linguistic variety without standardization or published literature.
一系列方言,其中每种方言的使用者都能听懂该系列中的下一种方言,但该系列中第一种方言的使用者可能听不懂最后一种方言。
A series of dialects such that speakers of each dialect can understand the next dialect in the series, but speakers of the first dialect in the series may not understand the last.
将胸腔与胃分隔开的大型肌肉;横膈膜收缩将空气吸入肺部。
The large muscle that separates the chest cavity from the stomach; contraction of the diaphragm draws air into the lungs.
同一语言的方言的社会组织,其中一种方言被认为更纯正,用于正式用途(包括写作),而其他方言则用于日常用途。双语社区以两种方言为荣。
A social organization of dialects of the same language so that one is seen as more pure and is used for formal purposes (including writing), while others are used for everyday purposes. Diglossic communities take pride in both.
一种教授第二语言的方法,认为非母语就像母语一样,不需要翻译和详细的语法解释就可以学习,因此强调通过使用具体的日常词汇,用目标语言进行自发的口语互动来归纳学习语法。
An approach to teaching second languages which held that non-native languages, just like native languages, could be learned without translation and detailed grammar explanations, and therefore emphasized inductive learning of grammar through spontaneous oral interaction in the target language using concrete, everyday vocabulary.
机器翻译基于将源语言句子中的单词映射到目标语言中的单词,而无需构建源语言句子的明确句法或语义表示。
Machine translation based on mapping words in a source-language sentence to words in a target language, without constructing an explicit syntactic or semantic representation of the source-language sentence.
句子之上(文本)和句子之外(上下文)的语言使用。
Language use above the sentence (text) and beyond the sentence (context).
与语言使用相关的信仰、价值观和实践。
The beliefs, values, and practices associated with the use of language.
语言学的一个分支,主要研究句子以外的语言使用,即语言在语境中的使用方式。话语分析将语言(声音、词素、单词和句子)到大于句子的语言使用单位以及使用语言的世界的各个方面。
The branch of linguistics that focuses on language use above and beyond the sentence, how language is used in context. Discourse analysis relates the forms of language (sounds, morphemes, words, and sentences) to units of language use larger than sentences and to aspects of the world in which language is used.
小词,具有很少(或没有)明显的语义内容,通常出现在话语的开头,显示话语之间以及话语与其上下文之间的联系。例如:好吧,但是。
Small words with little (or no) overt semantic content, often occurring at the beginning of utterances, that display connections among utterances as well as between an utterance and its context. Examples: well, but.
人类语言的基本属性,即将连续的可能声音或形式划分为单独的有界单位。例如,不同的语言将连续的可能语音“空间”划分为不同的音素库。
A fundamental property of human language whereby a continuous range of possible sounds or forms is divided into individual, bounded units. For example, different languages divide the continuous “space” of possible speech sounds into different inventories of phonemes.
1. 一种音系交替,其中两个相似的声音变得越来越不同。 2. 一种历时过程,其中两个声音变得越来越不相似。
1. A phonological alternation in which two sounds that are similar become more different. 2. A diachronic process by which two sounds become less alike.
大脑的某个区域或其他生物基质(例如神经递质类型)与某一心理过程的关联性比与另一心理过程的关联性更强。
A stronger association of a brain area or other biological substrate (e.g. neurotransmitter type) with one mental process than another.
与音系对比和交替相关的语音维度的正式表示(最初以加号或减号区别)。
Formal representation (originally as a plus or minus distinction) of a phonetic dimension relevant to phonological contrast and alternation.
大脑某个区域或其他生物基质仅服务于一种认知功能的程度(即,它是领域特定而不是领域通用的程度)。
The degree to which a brain area or other biological substrate subserves only one cognitive function (i.e. the degree to which it is domain-specific as opposed to domain-general).
如果两个半球(大脑或小脑)在某一特定功能中发挥的作用不平等,则优势半球将发挥更重要的作用。
If the two hemispheres (of the cerebrum or cerebellum) play unequal roles in a given function, the dominant hemisphere is that which plays the more important role.
借用了其中元素的语言被称为供给方语言,借用方语言被称为接受方语言。
A language from which elements are borrowed is called the donor, and the borrowing language is called the recipient language.
结合两个发音部位的发音,如唇软腭音。
Sound that combines two places of articulation, such as a labiovelar.
一种功能与一种生物认知基质相关,而另一种功能与另一种基质相关的情况。例如,一个大脑区域在语法处理过程中可能比词汇处理过程中表现出更多的激活,而另一个大脑区域在词汇处理过程中表现出比语法处理更多的激活。
Situation in which one function is associated with one biocognitive substrate, while another function is associated with another substrate. For example, one brain region may show more activation during grammatical than lexical processing, while another region shows greater activation for lexical than grammatical processing.
在单个动词短语中使用两个情态动词,即表示许可或能力的动词(例如 may、can、will、might、could、would、should),例如,I might could do it。
The use of two modal verbs – that is, verbs indicating permission or ability (e.g. may, can, will, might, could, would, should) – in a single verb phrase, for example, I might could do it.
人类语言的基本特性,即单个声音序列可以具有多种含义。
A fundamental property of human language whereby a single sequence of sounds can have more than one meaning.
一种发育障碍,不仅阅读能力受损,而且语言(特别是语音处理方面)也会受到影响。
A developmental disorder in which reading is impaired, although language (in particular aspects of phonological processing) is also affected.
一种语言变体,属于英语的一部分或与英语相关,具有自己的语法结构,由非洲裔人群体开发而成。
A language variety, part of English or related to English, with its own grammatical structure, that has been developed by communities of people of African descent.
基于头皮的大脑持续电活动记录。
Scalp-based recording of the brain’s ongoing electrical activity.
短语中出现的单词具有整个短语的含义的语义变化。
A semantic change in which a word occurring in a phrase takes on the meaning of the whole phrase.
在某些单词位置插入r,例如将wash替换为warsh或将 idea 替换为idea。
The insertion of r in certain word positions, for example in warsh for wash or idear for idea.
在特定实验条件下持续发现的特征性 ERP 波形(例如 N400)。
A characteristic ERP waveform (e.g. the N400) that is found consistently under particular experimental conditions.
一种语法类别,表示说话者话语的证据或来源(间接表示可靠性)。在以形态学标记证据性的语言中,典型的区别是第一手或“目击者”知识(更可靠)与第二手或“传闻”知识(可靠性较低)。
A grammatical category indicating the evidence or source (and indirectly, the reliability) of a speaker’s utterance. In languages which morphologically mark evidentiality, a typical distinction encodes firsthand or “eyewitness” knowledge (more reliable) vs. secondhand or “hearsay” knowledge (less reliable).
轮流的有序序列和允许轮流交换的程序。
An ordered sequence of turns and the procedures that allow for turn exchange.
一种将一个辅音插入其他辅音之间的插入音。
A kind of epenthesis in which a consonant is inserted between other consonants.
与实际、当前事实有关的意义方面;意义不是内涵的。
Aspects of meaning having to do with actual, current facts; meaning that is not intensional.
由于第二语言没有与第一语言中的元素相对应的词汇或语法要素,或需要第一语言中不存在的语法要素,因此在翻译过程中必然会增加或丢失的含义。
The meanings that are necessarily added or lost in the process of translation, because the second language has no lexical or grammatical counterpart to elements in the first or requires grammatical elements that do not exist in the first.
在形态学—语法学界面中,通过(自由或约束)语法词素实现的抽象语法属性,例如 [复数] 是通过英语中的各种形态手段实现的数字特征:通过后缀 -/z/ 及其音系条件变体,用于常规名词(书籍、论文)或元音变换(鹅、男人),或不规则后缀,如-en(牛)或零(鹿)。
In the morphology–syntax interface, an abstract grammatical property that is realized by (free or bound) grammatical morphemes, e.g. [plural] is a number feature that is realized by various morphological means in English: by the suffix -/z/ and its phonologically conditioned allomorphs for regular nouns (books, papers), or ablaut (geese, men), or irregular suffixes such as -en (oxen) or zero (deer).
一种计算机程序,它通过用由一组有限的、预先指定的状态和状态间标记转换组成的网络来表示处理过程,从而处理输入符号序列。程序从初始状态开始,在看到输入中的特定符号时,转换到另一个状态。如果程序在处理完所有输入后达到指定为最终状态的状态,则程序接受其输入。有限状态机相当于正则表达式。
A computer program that processes a sequence of input symbols by representing the processing in terms of a network consisting of a finite, prespecified set of states and labeled transition between states. The program starts in an initial state and, on seeing a particular symbol in the input, transitions to another state. The program is said to accept its input if it reaches a state designated as a final state on processing all of its input. Finite-state machines are equivalent to regular expressions.
一种有限状态网络,其中转换的标签是符号对。转换器可以看作是将上层语言中的符号序列(或字符串)映射到下层语言中的字符串(这是一种分析形式),反之亦然(一种生成形式)。程序从初始状态开始,在看到上层语言中的特定符号和下层语言中的相应符号后,转换到另一个状态。当它到达最终状态时,它已经处理了映射中定义的一对字符串。
A finite-state network where the labels of transitions are pairs of symbols. The transducer can be viewed as mapping sequences of symbols (or strings) in an upper language to strings in a lower language (this is a form of analysis), or vice versa (a form of generation). The program starts in an initial state and, on seeing a particular symbol in the upper language and a corresponding symbol in the lower language, transitions to another state. When it reaches a final state, it has processed a pair of strings defined in the mapping.
根据单词中的位置可以预测重音的系统。
System in which stress is predictable based on position in the word.
说一些看似违反格莱斯格言的话,但实际上却间接符合该格言。
Saying something which appears to violate a Gricean maxim, but which in an indirect way conforms to the maxim.
通过对词语成分的误解而创造出新的形式或对现有形式的新解释。
Creation of new forms or a new interpretation of existing forms through misinterpretation of the constituents of a word.
在当地不太广泛使用该语言的环境中学习非母语(例如在日本学习英语)。
Learning a non-native language in a context where the language is not widely spoken by the community (e.g. learning English in Japan).
语义学方法特别关注使用逻辑工具来理解短语的含义是如何由其各部分组成的。
The approach to semantics which is especially interested in using tools drawn from logic to understand how the meanings of phrases are composed from their parts.
声道共振,决定元音的质量;高振幅的组成频率。
A resonance of the vocal tract, determinative of vowel quality; a component frequency of high amplitude.
语音发音变得更加强弱的变化,例如从摩擦音变为塞音。
An alternation in which a speech sound becomes articulatorily stronger, as in the change from a fricative to a stop.
外语学习者达到稳定状态,并且停留在与母语人士相当的熟练程度。另请参阅稳定状态。
The state when a foreign language learner reaches a plateau and remains at a level of proficiency short of native-like mastery. See also stabilization.
一种信息封装方式,其中一个语言单位(通常是口语中的声调单位)每次大致呈现一个想法。
A way of packaging information in which a unit of language (typically a tone unit in spoken language) presents roughly one idea at a time.
一种上位信息,用于传达话语的含义以及说话者在特定语境中说话时认为自己在做什么。
A superordinate message that communicates how utterances are meant and what speakers think they are doing when they speak in a given context.
应用于词素,该术语表示词素可以独立存在而不必附着于词根,例如book、和、about。
Applied to morphemes, a term indicating that a morpheme may stand freely on its own without having to be attached to a base, e.g. book, and, about.
振动频率,以每秒周期数或赫兹 (Hz) 为单位。频率的感知关联是音调。
Rate of vibration, measured in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz). The perceptual correlate of frequency is pitch.
一种发音方式,其中发音器官靠得很近但不完全闭合,使得在它们之间强制流动的气流变得湍急且嘈杂。
Manner of articulation in which the articulators are brought close together but not closed completely, so that the stream of air that is forced between them becomes turbulent and noisy.
一类“单词”(词汇项)及其所代表的短语,含义相对较弱,但结构作用却很重要。功能类别,尽管名称如此,却是形式句法理论的一部分。
A class of “words” (lexical items), and the phrases they project, with relatively weak meaning, but an important structural role. Functional categories, despite their name, are part of formal theories of syntax.
大脑中语言和其他认知功能的解剖基础。
The anatomical bases of language and other cognitive functions in the brain.
从说话者和写作者使用语法的角度研究语法原理。
The study of principles of grammar derived from aspects of their use by speakers and writers.
在句子中起语法功能的词,例如限定词、助词和介词。
Words that serve grammatical functions in a sentence, such as determiners, auxiliaries, and prepositions.
复杂声音的基本振动频率,与音高相关。
Basic rate of vibration of a complex sound, correlated with pitch.
1. 一种类别系统(也称为名词类),语言中的名词都归属于此类。2. 一种语法类别,用于区分两个或多个名词类别,其他单词(如限定词、形容词或动词)必须与这些名词类别保持一致。例如,在西班牙语名词短语una amiga americana '一位(女性)美国朋友' 中,限定词una和形容词americana都经过变格处理,以与名词amiga的阴性性别保持一致。
1. A system of categories (also referred to as noun classes) into which the nouns of a language are placed. 2. A grammatical category that distinguishes two or more classes of nouns with which other words such as determiners, adjectives, or verbs must agree. For example, in the Spanish noun phrase una amiga americana ‘a (female) American friend’ both the determiner una and adjective americana are inflected to agree with the feminine gender of the noun amiga.
其形式和用途具有特定类型(例如祈祷、叙述、散文)的文本。
A text whose form and use characterize a particular type (e.g. prayer, narrative, essay).
近音,例如 [j] 和 [w],其舌位较高,且收缩比高元音的舌位略窄。
An approximant, such as [j] and [w], with a high tongue position and constriction just slightly narrower than that of a high vowel.
通过关闭声带、阻止喉部气流而发出的声音。
Sound made by closing the vocal folds, stopping the airflow at the larynx.
一种教授外语(特别是希腊语和拉丁语)的方法,侧重于明确教授语法和词汇,并不断参考和翻译学习者的母语。
An approach to teaching foreign languages (particularly Greek and Latin) that focused on explicit instruction of grammar and vocabulary with constant reference to and translation from the learner’s L1.
语言X的语法句子是X的使用者认为X的可接受的句子。
A grammatical sentence of a language X is a sentence that speakers of X consider an acceptable sentence of X.
人们所掌握的知识,大部分都低于人们的意识水平,即关于他们的母语在声音、语法形式和含义方面是否具有良好的结构。
The knowledge people have, most of it below the level of awareness, of what is and is not a well-formed structure of their native language, in terms of sound, grammatical form, and meaning.
自由或束缚词素,含有很少或根本不含有词汇内容,但可表达一个或多个语法属性,如人称、数或性别一致、时态、体、格等。
A free or bound morpheme containing little to no lexical content that expresses one or more grammatical properties, such as person, number, or gender agreement, tense, aspect, case, etc.
中古英语的长元音在早期现代英语中无条件但系统地升高的音变。
A sound change in which long vowels of Middle English were unconditionally but systematically raised in early Modern English.
雅各布·格林 (Jacob Grimm) 对 PIE 辅音向日耳曼语系统转变的描述。
Jacob Grimm’s description of the systematic shift of PIE consonants into Germanic.
单一语言变体所独有的特征,例如,宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡 将gumband用作rubberband 。
Features that are unique to a single language variety, for example, the use of gumband for rubberband in Pittsburgh, PA.
在一种语言变体中很普遍但在其他语言变体中也一定程度上使用的特征,例如,非裔美国英语中系动词的删除,而在美国南部白人白话变体中使用程度较为有限。
Features that are prevalent in one language variety but used to an extent in others, for example, the deletion of copula be in African American English, which is used to a more restricted extent in US Southern White vernacular varieties.
一种声音变化,其中重复的声音序列减少为单个声音。
A sound change in which a repeated sequence of sounds is reduced to a single occurrence.
针对具有种族、国籍、性别、宗教或性取向等社会特征的个人或群体的威胁或恐吓言论。
Threatening or intimidating discourse aimed at individuals or groups defined by such social characteristics as race, national origin, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.
1. 一个关键“词”(词汇项),从中可以推导出同一范畴的短语。2. 派生词(尤其是复合词)的一部分,它构成了整个词的上级语义范畴或决定了整个词的词汇范畴(或两者兼而有之),例如shortlist是一种列表,其含义通过词素short缩小(相对于wait(ing) list、black list或hit list ),而list的名词范畴决定了整个复合词的整体范畴(相对于short的形容词范畴);因此list是复合词的头词。
1. A key “word” (lexical item) from which a phrase of the same category is projected. 2. The part of a derived word (especially in compounds) that constitutes the superordinate semantic category or determines the lexical category (or both) of the overall word, e.g. a shortlist is a kind of list whose meaning is narrowed by the lexeme short (vs. a wait(ing) list, a black list or a hit list), and the Noun category of list determines the overall category of the entire compound (vs. the Adjective category of short); thus list is the head of the compound.
将较长、经过大量修改的限定词短语移至其从句最右端的过程。与所有移动一样,它受到通用语法的严格限制。
The process by which long, extensively modified Determiner Phrases are moved to the rightmost end of their clauses. Like all movements it is tightly restricted by Universal Grammar.
一种结合了表意文字、辅音符号和语义类别指示符的埃及书写系统。
An Egyptian writing system which combined logograms, consonantal symbols, and semantic class indicators.
一种实验程序,通过测量吸吮反应的持续时间和强度来评估婴儿对不同声音(以及其他事物)的感知。
An experimental procedure used to assess a young infant’s perception of different sounds (among other things) by measuring the duration and strength of sucking responses.
双言现象中的语言变体,通常通过正式学习而习得,并用于更正式的目的。
The language variety in diglossia that is usually learned by formal study and is used for more formal purposes.
舌体从中性位置向上移动的元音。
Vowel sound in which the tongue body moves up from a neutral position.
内侧颞叶中的一种结构,是陈述性记忆学习的基础。证据还表明,这种结构是词汇学习的基础。
A structure in the medial temporal lobe that underlies learning in declarative memory. Evidence also suggests that this structure underlies word learning.
语言发展的一个阶段,儿童用单词表达成人用较长的句子表达的含义。
The stage of linguistic development in which children produce one-word utterances to carry the meaning of what an adult would express in a longer sentence.
在身体的某个部位产生但会影响另一个部位的分子(例如雌激素)。
A molecule that is made in one part of the body but affects another (e.g. estrogen).
一种遗传性神经退行性疾病,以特征性抽搐运动(舞蹈症)以及多种语言和其他认知缺陷为特征。
An inherited neurodegenerative disease marked by characteristic jerking movements (chorea), as well as a number of language and other cognitive deficits.
一种类比变化,其中改变的形式被错误地认为比它所取代的正确形式更正确。
A kind of analogical change, in which a changed form is mistakenly assumed to be more correct than a correct form, which it replaces.
一个词,其所指对象与另一个词/所指对象的类和子类有关系;例如,bird是sparrow的上位词。
A word whose referent stands in the relation of class to subclass of another word/referent; for example, bird is the hypernym of sparrow.
一个词的所指包含在另一个词(它的上位词)的所指之内;例如,sparrow是bird的下位词。
A word whose referent is included within that of another word (its hypernym); for example, sparrow is a hyponym of bird.
在语言政治的背景下,对特定社会群体成员身份的认识。
In the context of the politics of language, an awareness of membership in a particular social group.
其字面意义不符合语义学原理的短语。
A phrase whose literal meaning does not follow from principles of semantics.
一种言语交流行为,例如断言或询问某事。
A speech act of communication, such as asserting or asking something.
动词的一种表现形式,表示正在进行的、习惯性的或重复的动作或状态。
The aspect of a verb which expresses ongoing, habitual or repeated actions or states.
说话者根据合作原则表达的意思。
Speaker’s meaning which comes about because of the cooperative principle.
词素或单词的含义取决于使用上下文。
A morpheme or word which depends for its meaning on the context of use.
交流时不将所有含义都放在话语的字面意思中。
Communicating without putting all the meaning into the literal meaning of the words spoken.
仅考察一般模式的研究无法很好表征个体受试者或受试者群体之间的差异。
Differences between individual subjects or groups of subjects that are not well characterized by studies that examine only general patterns.
动词的非时态表达或形式,通常用作引用形式。例如,英语可能使用裸动词或特殊不定式标记to,如to sleep,而德语(和许多其他语言)用特定后缀标记不定式形式,例如schlaf- en “to sleep”。
The untensed expression or form of a verb which is often used as a citation form. For example, English may use the bare verb or the special infinitive marker to as in to sleep, whereas German (and many other languages) mark the infinitive form with a particular suffix, e.g. schlaf-en ‘to sleep.’
出现在所应用的词根内的一种词缀,例如他加禄语过去时态词缀:tulong “帮助” → t-um-ulong “有帮助”。
A type of affix that appears inside the base to which it’s applied, e.g. Tagalog past-tense infixation: tulong ‘help’ → t-um-ulong ‘helped.’
1. 在形态学中,根据语言的语法要求,修改词素的形式以表示语法对比的过程。例如,许多语言要求其动词进行屈折以与主语的人称和数特征一致,例如意大利语(noi) lavor-iamo “我们正在工作”与(loro) lavor-ano “他们正在工作”。2. 在语法中,时态或助动词等元素是句子结构的核心,有助于其动词意义。
1. In morphology, the process of modifying the form of a lexeme to signal a grammatical contrast as required by the syntax of a language. For example, many languages require their verbs to be inflected for agreement with the person and number features of their subjects, e.g. Italian (noi) lavor-iamo ‘we’re working’ vs. (loro) lavor-ano ‘they’re working.’ 2. In syntax, an element, like a tense or an auxiliary, that is central to the structure of a sentence and contributes to its verbal meaning.
句子的“支架”。词形变化短语有一个必需的说明符,包含句子的主语,以及一个补语,包含主要动词短语,并以词形变化为首。
The “scaffold” of a sentence. Inflection Phrases have a required specifier, containing the subject of the sentence, and a complement, containing the main Verb Phrase, and are headed by an inflection.
对单词进行修改以适合其语法角色(例如sang和walk是sing和walk的过去时变格形式)。
The modification of a word to fit its grammatical role (e.g. sang and walked are past-tense inflected forms of sing and walk).
从自然语言输入自动填充模板(或表格)的过程,包括有关文本中引用的特定实体的信息,例如事件、人物、组织、地点和时间(这些称为命名实体)以及它们之间的特定关系。
The process of automatically filling templates (or tables) from natural language input, including information about specific entities referenced in the text, such as events, people, organizations, locations, and times (these are called named entities) and particular relations between them.
在相互交流的人们之间传播知识(新信息或旧信息)。
The distribution of knowledge (as new or old information) among people interacting with one another.
单一语言变体中各词之间的差异,例如, 在无r的方言中,某些单词和句子位置上的r和ø之间的差异(参见r -lessness)。此类差异是所有语言和语言变体所固有的,并根据语言和社会因素显示出规律性模式。
Variability between items in a single language variety, for example, variability between r and ø in certain word and sentence positions in r-less dialects (see r-lessness). Such variability is inherent in all languages and language varieties and shows regular patterns according to linguistic and social factors.
希望通过学习另一种语言获得一些实用或具体的东西。
A desire to obtain something practical or concrete from learning a another language.
一种信息包装方式,其中一个语言单位(通常是一个句子)呈现并在句法上整合多个想法。
A way of packaging information in which a unit of language (typically a sentence) presents and syntactically integrates several ideas.
与目前可能并非真实的可能性有关的意义方面。例如情态和时态。
Aspects of meaning having to do with possibilities that may not be actually true at the present time. Examples include modality and tense.
语言学的一个子领域,其中互动的社会后果可追溯到语言现象。
A subfield of linguistics in which the social consequences of interactions are traced to linguistic phenomena.
与 L2 母语人士或非母语人士互动可以促进 L2 的发展,这一假设。
The hypothesis that interacting with either a native or non-native speaker of the L2 can facilitate the development of the L2.
一种心理处理类型,其中各个子过程相互依赖且基本上同时发生。
A type of mental processing in which individual subprocesses interact interdependently and largely concurrently.
一种语言(例如某人的第一语言)的知识会对另一种语言(例如某人的第二语言)的发展、产生或理解产生负面影响。
The knowledge of one language (e.g. one’s first language) negatively impacting on the development, production, or comprehension of another (e.g. one’s second language).
学习者基于规则的 L2 系统可能同时具备 L1 和 L2 的特点;在学习 L2 时使用母语中的模式或规则,从而导致错误。
The learner’s rule-based L2 system, which may possess characteristics of both the L1 and L2; the use of a pattern or rule from one’s native language in learning an L2, resulting in an error.
机器翻译基于将源语言中的话语分析为语言中立的表示形式,即没有任何特定于特定自然语言的特征,并从语言中立表示形式生成目标语言话语。
Machine translation based on analyzing an utterance in a source language into a representation that is language-neutral, i.e. devoid of any features specific to a particular natural language, and generating a target language utterance from the language-neutral representation.
重建一种语言的早期形式,这依赖于对单一语言中形式的分析。由于许多形态音素变化会留下明显的痕迹,通过分析这些痕迹,人们可以重建早期形式以及导致其当前形式的变化。
Reconstruction of an earlier form of a language which relies on the analysis of forms within a single language. Since many morphophonemic changes leave noticeable traces, by analyzing these traces one can reconstruct earlier forms and the changes that led to their current forms.
与重叠不同,试图从另一位发言者手中夺取谈话权。
As distinguished from overlap, an attempt to wrest the conversational floor from another speaker.
使用音调在句子或话语层面传达含义。
The use of pitch to convey meaning at the sentence or discourse level.
可能对受试者造成伤害或不适,特别是由于将外来器械或物质引入体内而造成的伤害。
Potentially causing harm or discomfort to a subject, specifically as a result of introducing a foreign instrument or substance into the body.
不遵循常规的语言模式。例如,英语不规则过去时形式(例如,dug来自dig)不遵循在动词后添加 -ed 后缀 的常规过去时模式。
Not following the regular linguistic pattern. For example, English irregular past-tense forms (e.g. dug from dig) do not follow the regular past-tense pattern of adding the -ed suffix to the verb.
与特定活动领域(如职业或爱好)相关的一组词汇,例如计算机术语或体育术语。
A set of lexical items associated with a particular sphere of activity, such as a profession or a hobby, for example, computer jargon or sports jargon.
用来表达语言和文化不可分割的术语。
Term used to express the inseparability of language and culture.
一种被认为具有社会和政治重要性的语言变体,一般(但并非总是)与其他语言不能互相理解。
A language variety acknowledged to have social and political importance, generally (but not always) not mutually intelligible with other languages.
大脑中专门负责语言并使语言习得成为可能的先天区域。
The proposed innate area of the brain that is dedicated to language and which makes language acquisition possible.
孩子与其照顾者之间的日常互动和关系有助于语言的习得。
The daily interactions and relationships the child has with his/her caregivers which support the acquisition of language.
(德语:Ausbau ) 一种与其他语言足够相似的语言,其差异并不能保证它具有语言(而非方言)的地位,但它已由其言语社区通过标准化和文学使用刻意发展为一种独特的语言。
(German: Ausbau) A language that is similar enough to other languages that its differences wouldn’t guarantee it language – rather than dialect – status, but that has been deliberately developed by its speech community – via standardization and literary usage – as a distinct language.
(德语:Abstand)一种与其他语言有很大差异的语言,其语言地位无可争议。
(German: Abstand) A language that is so different from other languages that its status as a language is not in dispute.
人类大脑的一部分,包含个人的语言能力。它是一种“器官”,因为它可以被识别为认知的一个独特元素,例如现实世界知识、感知机制和各种审美成分。
The aspect of the human brain which encompasses an individual’s language capacity. It is an “organ” in the sense that it is identifiable as a distinct element of cognition, such as real-world knowledge, perceptual mechanisms, and various aesthetic components.
刻意指定可以为某些重要目的所接受的语言形式,通常被视为定义语言的“正确”形式。
Deliberate specification of the forms of a language that are acceptable for certain prestigious purposes, often taken as defining the “correct” forms of a language.
位于气管顶部的软骨结构,包含声带。
Cartilaginous structure at the top of the trachea that contains the vocal folds.
1. [l] 音;用舌头的一侧或两侧放低发出的音。2. 朝大脑两侧的外侧(即朝头部的两侧)发出。
1. An [l] sound; a sound that is made with one or both sides of the tongue lowered. 2. Toward the outside of the brain on either side (i.e. toward either side of the head).
拉丁语中发生的变化大约发生于公元前 600 年,其中拉丁语中的元音之间的 /s/ 变成了 /r/。
The change which occurred in Latin about 600 BCE, in which Latin /s/ changed to /r/ between vowels.
通过放松舌根发出。松弛元音比紧元音稍短且低。
Produced with relaxation of the tongue root. Lax vowels are slightly shorter and lower than their tense counterparts.
声音发音变弱的变化,例如从塞音变为擦音或从擦音变为近音。
An alternation in which a sound becomes articulatorily weaker, as in the change from a stop to a fricative or a fricative into an approximant.
词汇词素,即通常属于主要词汇类别名词 (N)、动词 (V) 或形容词 (A) 之一的词汇条目,并且能够通过词形变化用于特定的语法语境,例如dance、danced、dances和dancing都是基于词素DANCE的词。
A lexical morpheme, that is, a vocabulary entry typically belonging to one of the major lexical categories Noun (N), Verb (V) or Adjective (A), and capable of being inflected for use in particular grammatical contexts, e.g. dance, danced, dances, and dancing are all words based on the lexeme DANCE.
一类“词”(词汇项)及其所代表的短语,含义相对丰富,结构作用相对不重要。词汇类别与传统的“词性”有很大重叠。
A class of “words” (lexical items), and the phrases they project, with relatively rich meaning and a relatively less important structural role. Lexical categories overlap substantially with traditional “parts of speech.”
心理词汇中的一种表示形式,包含有关给定单词的信息。通常认为它至少包括有关其句法角色(例如,它是名词还是动词)的特殊信息,以及有关单词含义和音位形式的信息。
A representation in the mental lexicon that contains information about a given word. It is typically thought to include (at least) idiosyncratic information about its syntactic roles (e.g. whether it is a noun or a verb), as well as information about the word’s meaning and phonological form.
系统中重音是个别词汇的不可预测的属性。
System in which stress is an unpredictable property of individual lexical items.
不同方言中或方言内部词汇或词汇的变化,例如,英式英语中lift的用法与美式英语中 elevator的用法。
Variation in lexical items or vocabulary that occurs across or within dialects, for example, the use of lift in British English vs. elevator in American English.
说话者的“心理词典”,包括词汇知识,包括其发音、含义和语法属性。
The “mental dictionary” of a speaker comprising knowledge of lexical items, including their pronunciation, meaning, and grammatical properties.
萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说的强形式,该假说认为语言决定了个人如何思考他们所谈论的内容。
The strong form of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis by which language is believed to determine how individuals think about what they talk about.
萨丕尔—沃尔夫假说更常见的弱形式,即人们认为语言会影响个人对所谈论内容的看法。
The more commonly held weak form of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis by which language is believed to influence how individuals think about what they talk about.
采用借用语中已经存在的材料来描述捐助语中的对象和概念。
The adoption of material already present in the borrowing language for the objects and concepts belonging to the donor language.
确定生物底物(特别是特定心理过程所依据的底物)的大脑位置。
To determine the brain location(s) of biological substrates, in particular of substrates that underlie a given mental process.
表示空间某个位置的格,通常用名词形式或介词表示。
The case referring to some location in space, often by a noun’s form or by a preposition.
表示范围等语义信息的句法结构级别。
A level of syntactic structure which represents semantic information such as scope.
研究人员在较长一段时间内(通常是数月或数年)调查相同主题的一种研究类型。
A type of study in which the researcher investigates the same subjects over an extended period of time (typically many months or years).
双言现象中的语言变体,最初是在儿童时期习得的,随后被社区中的每个人用于日常生活。
The language variety in diglossia that is learned first in childhood and subsequently used for everyday purposes by everyone in the community.
舌体从中性位置向下移动的元音。
Vowel sound in which the tongue body moves down from a neutral position.
使用计算机程序在有或没有人工交互的情况下自动进行语言之间的翻译。
Automatic translation between languages using a computer program with or without human interaction.
为语音而产生的收缩类型:塞音、摩擦音、塞擦音、近音、元音。
The type of constriction that is made for a speech sound: stop, fricative, affricate, approximant, vowel.
跨语言领域中相对不常见,或者相对来说比较难听到或说出来。
Relatively uncommon crosslinguistically, or relatively more difficult to hear or to say.
表示不可个体化的物质、活动或品质的名词,通常不计数或复数化,例如牛奶、园艺、粗心。
A noun that denotes a nonindividuatable substance, activity, or quality that is not typically counted or pluralized, e.g. milk, gardening, carelessness.
属于格莱斯合作原则的四项沟通原则。
Four principles of communication which fall under Grice’s Cooperative Principle.
通过计算每个句子的平均词素数量来衡量儿童的语言发展程度。
A measure of a child’s linguistic development by calculating the average number of morphemes per sentence.
1. 短语被包含在更大的短语中的过程。2. 两个或多个音素随着时间的推移合并为一个音素。
1. The process by which phrases are included in larger phrases. 2. The falling together over time of two or more phonemes into one.
信息是所说词语的含义;元信息标识了词语的意图框架——如何解释这些词语。
The message is the meaning of the words spoken; the metamessage identifies the frame in which the words are intended – how to interpret the words.
有意识地认识语言本身的特点以及它是如何运作的。
Conscious awareness of the characteristics of the language itself and how it works.
当旧形式的结构分析被对说话者来说“更有意义”的分析类比取代时。
When the structural analysis of an older form is analogically replaced by an analysis which makes “more sense” to a speaker.
对两件事或两种情况之间的相似性的感知,导致一个人将某物当作其他东西来对待。
A perception of similarity between two things or situations which leads one to treat something as if it were something else.
1. 语音顺序的同步转换。 2. 声音位置调换的历时过程。
1. A synchronic switching of the order of speech sounds. 2. A diachronic process in which the positions of sounds are transposed.
意义的扩大,用一个指代语义域中单个项目的词来表示整个域。
A broadening of meaning, in which a word referring to a single item of a semantic domain is used to represent the entire domain.
舌体保持在中性、中间高度的元音。
Vowel sound in which the tongue body remains at a neutral, intermediate height.
两个不同的词,在相同的位置上仅有一个声音的差异,例如 [p h æt] 和 [bæt]。
Two distinct words that differ only in a single sound in the same position, such as [phæt] and [bæt].
某个指定范围内的某个点,低于该最低标准适用的物品即被视为不适合使用。
A point on some specified scale below which the item to which the minimum standard applies is deemed not fit for use.
与可能并非实际的可能性有关的意义方面;情态动词包括像必须和可以这样的词。
Aspects of meaning having to do with possibilities which may not be actual; modals include words like must and can.
在学习者收到关于非目标类型的话语(例如,不合语法的话语)的反馈后,他们可能会改变原来的话语(即产生修改后的输出),以尝试让对话者更容易理解。
After learners receive feedback on a non-targetlike utterance (e.g. an utterance that was ungrammatical), they may change their original utterance (i.e. produce modified output) in an attempt to be more comprehensible to their interlocutors.
一种语法类别,用于表达说话者对话语内容的信念、观点或态度,例如某个命题是否可能为真或是否值得怀疑,或者他/她想知道、希望或祝愿的事情。一些常见的语气区别包括陈述语气(用于断言)、疑问语气(用于问题)、祈使语气(用于命令)和虚拟语气(用于表达愿望、希望、怀疑等)。
A grammatical category that expresses a speaker’s belief, opinion, or attitude about the content of an utterance, such as whether a proposition is likely or doubtful to be true, or something he/she wonders about, or hopes or wishes for. Some common mood distinctions include indicative (for assertions), interrogative (for questions), imperative (for commands), and subjunctive (for the expression of desire, hope, doubt, etc.).
语言中最小的有意义的单位。单词由一个或多个词素组成,例如单词roses由两个词素组成 - 词素rose加上复数后缀(在本例中由同位异形 [ Ә z] 实现)。
The smallest meaningful unit of language. Words are made up of one or more morphemes, e.g. the word roses is made up of two morphemes – the lexeme rose plus the plural suffix (realized in this case by the allomorph [Әz]).
一组研究旨在调查英语作为第二语言的学习者习得特定英语词素的顺序。
A group of studies designed to investigate the order in which learners of English as a second language acquire particular morphemes in English.
语言学的一个分支,主要研究词语的内部结构分析,包括某一语言中可能出现的词语的类别和产生和解释的过程。
The branch of linguistics that is concerned with the analysis of internal word structure, including the categories and processes for producing and interpreting the possible words of one’s language.
与形态复杂词的音系结构、性质和关系有关。
Having to do with the phonological structure, properties, and relations of morphologically complex words.
一方面与形态结构和属性的对应关系有关,另一方面与句法的对应关系有关(例如,过去时态的形态词缀和其他类型的屈折变化如何表示为句法结构中的类别)。
Having to do with the correspondence of morphological structure and properties on the one hand, and those of syntax on the other (such as how morphological affixes for past-tense and other types of inflection are represented as categories in syntactic structure).
单词组成句子的方式有所不同,例如,在美式英语中, gotten和got作为get的过去分词形式使用,而在英式英语中则不同(例如, She has got used to it和She has got used to it)。
Variation in how words are put together into sentences, for example, the use of gotten vs. got as the past participle form of get in American vs. British English, respectively (e.g. She has gotten used to it vs. She has got used to it).
学习者为获得某项特定技能而付出的努力程度。
The degree of effort a learner makes to acquire a particular skill.
一个拥有多个民族但只有一个民族的国家。
A state which includes a number of ethnic groups, but only one nationality.
一个由两个或多个民族组成的国家,其中没有一个民族拥有很大或日益增强的控制权。
A state which includes two or more nationalities, none of which is largely or increasingly in control.
人们以多种身份相互交流的 社交网络,例如邻居、同事和朋友。
A social network in which people interact with one another in more than one capacity, for example, a neighbor, workmate, and friend.
语言发展阶段,儿童大约两岁时开始说出三个或更多单词的短语。
Stage of language development in which children begin to produce phrases of three or more words; at approximately two years of age.
约束理论要求“完整”名词短语(而非代词或照应词)不能指代句子左边的任何主语。
A “full” noun phrase, not a pronoun or anaphor, required by the Binding Theory not to refer to any subject to the left within its sentence.
按时间顺序讲述发生的事情来重现过去的经历。
A recapitulation of a past experience by telling about what happened in temporal order.
参见扩大。
See broadening.
大部分或日益受单一民族控制的国家。
A state that is largely or increasingly under the control of a single nationality.
对本国民族的感情和行动是象征性的而非实用的。
Feelings and actions in favor of one’s nationality that are symbolic rather than pragmatic.
一个意识到并渴望保持或提高其相对于其他民族的地位的社会群体。一个民族可能不控制自己的领土,但可能渴望领土自治。
A social group that is aware of, and desirous of preserving or increasing, its place with respect to other nationalities. A nationality may not control its own territory, but may aspire to territorial autonomy.
一种语言习得方法,源自诺姆·乔姆斯基的研究,该方法假设先天语言知识或普遍语法 (UG)指导所有语言学习。
An approach to language acquisition, derived from the work of Noam Chomsky, which assumes that innate linguistic knowledge, or Universal Grammar (UG), guides all language learning.
一种教授第二语言的方法,其基于这样的信念:在轻松的学习环境中,有上进心的学习者在接触到略高于其当前熟练程度的可理解输入时会自动掌握目标语言。
An approach to teaching second languages which was based on the belief that in a relaxed learning environment, motivated learners would automatically acquire the target language when exposed to comprehensible input slightly above their current proficiency level.
具有一个或多个共同语音属性的一组声音。
A group of sounds that has one or more phonetic properties in common.
语言数据与日常生活中使用的语言相似的特征。
A characteristic of language data when they are similar to the language used in everyday life.
参见威望动机。
See prestige motive.
某些语言中出现的现象是,两个或多个否定形式出现,彼此一致,但不影响句子的否定力。例如,法语Je ne sais pas(“我不知道”,字面意思是“我不知道”),西班牙语No veo nada(“我什么也没看到”,字面意思是“我什么也没看到”),或非标准英语He won't do nothing。
The phenomenon in some languages by which two or more negative forms appear, agreeing with one another, without affecting the negative force of the sentence. For example, French Je ne sais pas (‘I don’t know’, lit. ‘I don’t know not’), Spanish No veo nada (‘I don’t see anything’, lit. ‘I don’t see nothing’), or nonstandard English He won’t do nothing.
人类大脑中的主要皮层类型。新皮层对于大多数认知功能(包括语言)都很重要。
The main type of cortex found in the human cerebrum. Neocortex is important for most cognitive functions, including language.
与心理功能的神经、认知和计算相关性有关。
Relating to the neural, cognitive, and computational correlates of mental functions.
一种导致脑组织逐渐丧失的疾病。
A disease involving the progressive loss of brain tissue.
构建显示来自实际大脑信息的图像。使用不同的方法(例如 MRI、fMRI、PET 等),可以创建不同类型的图像,包含不同类型的信息。这些包括“结构图像”(显示解剖结构)和“功能图像”(显示认知处理过程中的大脑活动)。
The construction of images that display information from actual brains. Using different methods (e.g. MRI, fMRI, PET, etc.), different types of images can be created, containing different types of information. These include “structural images” (which show anatomical structures) and “functional images” (which show brain activity during cognitive processing).
大脑和其余神经系统中的细胞是运动、感知、认知和其他心理过程的基础。
The cells in the brain and the rest of the nervous system that underlie movement, perception, cognition, and other mental processes.
在一个神经元和另一个神经元之间传递的分子,使两个神经元能够进行通信。
Molecules that pass between one neuron and another, allowing the two neurons to communicate.
动词主语的格;谁或什么在“做某事”。
The case of the subject of a verb; who or what is “doing something.”
非标准方言是特定社会中最受社会青睐的语言变体以外的语言变体。非标准方言并非标准方言的不完美近似,而是具有其自身的内部一致性,可用于表达标准变体可以表达的任何想法或概念。如果政治、社会或经济形势发生变化,非标准变体可能会成为标准语言。
A variety of language other than the most socially favored variety or varieties in a particular society. Nonstandard dialects are not imperfect approximations of a standard but rather have their own internal consistency and can be used to express any idea or concept that can be expressed by a standard variety. A nonstandard variety could become the standard language if the political, social, or economic situation were to change.
声称必须注意到输入才能将其转化为摄入(即学习)。
The claim that input must be noticed in order to be converted into intake (i.e. learned).
名词和代词的语法属性,用于对比可数实体的基本数量,例如单数(“一个”)或复数(“多于一个”),并且可能需要其他元素(例如限定词、形容词或动词)一致,例如student与students 。有些语言有单数、双数(“两个”)和复数(“两个以上”) 三方面的对比。
A grammatical property of nouns and pronouns which contrasts a basic quantity of countable entities, such as singular (‘one’) or plural (‘more than one’), and may require agreement by other elements such as determiners, adjectives, or verbs, e.g. student vs. students. Some languages have a three-way contrast between singular, dual (‘two’), and plural (‘more than two’).
研究人员观察(通常录音或录像)自然情境中儿童个体互动的一种研究类型。
A type of study in which the researcher observes (and often audio- or videotapes) individual children interacting in natural contexts.
由于声道气流受阻而发出的语音:口腔塞音、摩擦音和塞擦音。
A speech sound that is made audible by obstruction of the airflow in the vocal tract: oral stops, fricatives, and affricates.
用于履行国家实际职能的语言,例如发布官方文件、开展立法业务或指挥军队。
The language used to carry out the practical functions of a state, such as publishing official documents, conducting the business of the legislature, or operating the military.
孩子使用一个词来涵盖比成人更多的指称;例如,将所有四足动物都称为“狗”。
The child’s use of a word to cover more referents than an adult would; for example, referring to all four-legged creatures as “dogs.”
将规则错误地应用于特殊情况,例如将“went”说成“goed”。
Misapplying a rule to an exceptional case, such as saying “goed” instead of “went.”
通过舌体和舌叶收缩抵住硬腭而发出的声音。
Sound made with a constriction of the tongue body and blade against the hard palate.
一组屈折对比,相对于一个或多个语法特征来定义,例如特定时态中特定变位类的动词的人称和数一致屈折对比集。
A set of inflectional contrasts, defined in relation to one or more grammatical features, such as the set of person and number agreement inflectional contrasts for verbs of a particular conjugation class in a particular tense.
重音取决于单词的形态特性的系统。
System in which stress depends on the morphological properties of a word.
一种信息处理方法,它根据在输入中检测到的规律进行关联,并同时处理多个级别的信息(而不是像串行处理那样依次处理)。
An information processing approach which makes associations based on regularities detected in the input and also works with many levels of information simultaneously (rather than sequentially, as in serial processing).
儿童语言发展的详细个人记录,通常由儿童的父母或监护人撰写。
Detailed personal records of a child’s language development, typically written by the parent or guardian of the child.
一种神经退行性疾病,导致运动障碍(包括震颤)以及语言和其他认知功能障碍。退行性疾病主要发生在基底神经节。
A neurodegenerative disease leading to motor impairments, including tremor, as well as language and other cognitive dysfunctions. The degeneration takes place primarily in the basal ganglia.
句子层次句法结构的图形表示。
A graphic representation of the hierarchical syntactic structure of a sentence.
自动构建输入语言中符号序列的结构分析,通常基于该语言的语法。
Automatically constructing a structural analysis of a sequence of symbols in an input language, usually based on a grammar for that language.
最简单解释优先的逻辑原则。有时被称为“奥卡姆剃刀”,以 14 世纪哲学家威廉·奥卡姆命名。
The logical principle that the simplest explanation is preferred. Sometimes referred to as “Occam’s razor,” after the fourteenth-century philosopher, William of Occam.
将输入句子中的每个单词映射到其最可能的词性的过程。
The process of mapping each word in an input sentence to its most likely part of speech.
应用形态规则的策略:计算机程序识别与规则模式相匹配的单词;然后,按照规则的操作记录该单词的形态成分。
A strategy for applying morphological rules: a computer program identifies words that match the rule’s pattern; it then records that word’s morphological components, as specified by the rule’s action.
人们通过调整角色、身份以及行为和互动方式来组织和维持互动的方式。
The ways that people organize and maintain an interaction by adapting roles, identities, and ways of acting and interacting.
声道中的结构,主动的发声器官会向其移动以产生收缩。
Structures in the vocal tract toward which the active articulators move in order to create a constriction.
贬义是指语义变化,即单词获得负面价值。其反义词是改善,即单词获得更积极的价值。
Pejoration is a semantic change in which a word acquires a negative value. Its opposite is amelioration, in which a word acquires a more positive value.
动词的一种形式,描述动作或过程作为一个整体,没有内部结构。
The aspect of a verb which describes an action or process as a whole, without internal structure.
其功能是影响世界的句子;与陈述句相比。
A sentence whose function is to affect the world; compare to constative.
言语行为以超越纯粹交流的方式影响世界。
A speech act which affects the world in a way that goes beyond pure communication.
名词和代词的语法属性,用于区分话语中提及的实体作为说话者(“第一”人称)、受话人(“第二”人称)或其他一切(“第三”人称)的角色,并且可能需要从句中其他词(例如动词)的一致。
A grammatical property of nouns and pronouns that distinguishes entities referred to in an utterance in relation to their role as speaker (“first” person), addressee (“second” person), or everything else (“third” person), and that may require agreement by other words in a clause, such as verbs.
喉咙后部的开放区域,位于喉头和软腭之间。
The open area in the back of the throat, between the larynx and the velum.
舌体向咽后壁收缩时发出的声音。
Sound made with constriction of the tongue body toward the back wall of the pharynx.
语言中的对比声音之一;说话者认为相同的一组声音的标签。
One of the contrastive sounds of a language; a label for a group of sounds that are perceived by the speaker to be the same.
一种语言的音素和其字母表中的字母之间存在一一对应的关系。
The ideal of a one-to-one relationship between the phonemes of a language and the letters of its alphabet.
汉字的一部分,表示相应词素的发音方式。
Part of a Chinese character which indicates how the corresponding morpheme is pronounced.
原始语言形式重建的要求是,假定的声音变化必须在语音上是可能的。
The requirement in reconstruction of protolanguage forms that a posited sound change must be phonetically likely.
代表口语的声音单位(音素或音节)的书面符号。
A written symbol which represents a sound unit (phoneme or syllable) of the spoken language.
以“A 在上下文 C 中变成 B”的形式,使用区别性特征来正式陈述音位交替。
Formal statement, using distinctive features, of a phonological alternation, in the form “A becomes B in context C.”
发音多样,例如,在卡斯蒂利亚西班牙语中, c和z的发音为 [ θ ],而在美洲的西班牙语变体中则发音为 [s]。
Variation in pronunciations, for example, the pronunciation of c and z as [θ] in Castilian Spanish vs. [s] in Spanish varieties in the Americas.
对允许相邻出现或在单词中的特定位置出现的声音类型的限制。
Restrictions on the types of sounds that are allowed to occur next to each other or in particular positions in a word.
描述语言中短语和句子结构的规则。
Rules that describe the structure of phrases and sentences in a language.
与某个物体或想法相似且非任意代表的书面符号。
A written symbol which resembles and nonarbitrarily represents an object or idea.
具有基本词汇和语法的初级接触语言或贸易语言。
A rudimentary contact or trade language which has a basic vocabulary and grammar.
大脑可塑性是指大脑组织因经验而发生的变化,例如大脑受损后哪些大脑结构能够发挥某种功能(见补偿)。
Brain plasticity refers to changes in brain organization in response to experience, such as changes as to which brain structures subserve a function after brain damage (see compensation).
一种技术术语,指某种文化中为平衡个人自由与群体归属感之间相互竞争的互动需求而制定的规范。
A technical term for the norms in a culture for balancing the competing interactive needs of personal freedom and belonging to a group.
宇宙可能存在的一种方式;真实的宇宙是一个可能世界,称为现实世界,所有其他假设的可能性也是如此。
A way that the universe could be; the real universe is a possible world, called the actual world, as are all other hypothetical possibilities.
舌叶收缩至口腔顶部(位于齿槽嵴后方)时发出的声音。
Sound made with a constriction of the tongue blade against the roof of the mouth just behind the alveolar ridge.
某些语言中的词汇项目,类似于英语中的介词,只是它出现在补语 之后。
A lexical item in some languages that is like a preposition in English, except that it occurs after its complement.
说话者表现出的遵守自然语法限制的能力超出了他们从语言经验中所能学到的能力,因此支持语言器官(普遍语法)的存在。
The argument that the ability speakers demonstrate in conforming to the restrictions of natural grammar exceeds what could be learned from their experience with language, hence supporting the existence of a language organ (Universal Grammar).
语言使用惯例的变化,例如,在谈话中是否需要停顿,如果需要,停顿要持续多长时间。
Variation in conventions for language use, for example, variation in whether pauses are expected between turns in conversation and, if so, how long these pauses are expected to be.
研究特定使用环境中的意义的语言学领域。
The field of linguistics which studies meaning in particular contexts of use.
位于与其绑定的词根之前的词缀,例如单词unhappy中的un - 。
An affix that precedes the base to which it is bound, e.g. un- in the word unhappy.
这种方法认为某些语言用法比其他语言用法更正确。
An approach which claims some uses of language are more correct than others.
当从文化或政治上占主导地位的语言中借用元素时,动机是为了声望。当接受方语言借用新事物和新概念及其名称时,动机则变成满足需求。
When elements are borrowed from a culturally or politically dominant language, the motive is prestige. The motive becomes need-filling when the recipient language borrows new objects and concepts along with their names.
说话者所说的内容要想在使用上恰当,就必须接受这一命题。
A proposition which a speaker must take for granted if what he/she says is to be appropriate in the context of use.
直接(图形)表现某个物体或想法,不借助语言。
Direct (pictorial) representation of an object or idea, without reference to language.
该原理指出,单词、短语或句子的含义可以根据其各部分的含义及其组合方式来推算。
The principle which states that the meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence can be computed from the meanings of its parts and the way they are put together.
先前的语言使用实例,如果没有它,当前的语言实例就无法被解释。
Previous instances of language use without which current instances of language cannot be interpreted.
记忆系统是学习和控制运动和认知技能(例如骑自行车)的基础。这种知识似乎完全是隐性的。该系统根植于穿过基底神经节和额叶皮层的大脑回路。
The memory system that underlies the learning and control of motor and cognitive skills such as riding a bicycle. This knowledge seems to be entirely implicit. The system is rooted in brain circuits passing through the basal ganglia and frontal cortex.
计算策略是指程序或处理策略以及语言数据。
A computational strategy that refers to procedures or processing strategies, as well as linguistic data.
产出性词缀,如 -ed或-ness ,可用于创建新的词形。例如,可以将此类词缀添加到自造词或借用词中。
Productive affixes, such as -ed or -ness, can be used to create new word forms. For example, one can add such affixes to made-up or borrowed words.
人类语言的一个基本属性,即根据给定语言的规则组合现有形式可以构建无数新含义。例如,可以通过创建现有词素的新组合来创造新词。
A fundamental property of human language whereby an infinite number of new meanings can be constructed by combining existing forms according to the rules of a given language. For example, new words can be coined by creating novel combinations of existing morphemes.
动词的一种形式,表示在给定的时间点上未完成的状态或持续的动作。
The aspect of a verb which expresses incomplete state or continuing action at a given point in time.
从“单词”(词汇项)创建短语的过程。短语与“单词”属于同一类别,可能具有要合并补语和/或说明短语的结构。
The process by which a phrase is created from a “word” (lexical item). The phrase is of the same category as the “word” and may have structure into which a complement and/or a specifier phrase is to be merged.
一种名词短语,其内在含义很少,用于指代已知实体,并且根据约束理论,该短语不能指代其自身子句的主语。
A type of noun phrase, with little intrinsic meaning, used to refer to an already-known entity, and required by the Binding Theory not to refer to the subject of its own clause.
婴儿和看护者之间类似对话的交流,其中看护者对婴儿的微笑、打嗝和牙牙学语做出反应,就好像婴儿在传达信息一样。
An exchange between an infant and caregiver that resembles a conversation, in which the caregiver responds to the infant’s smiles, burps, and babbling as if the infant was communicating a message.
相关语言由其衍生出来的(重建的)母语言。
A (reconstructed) parent language from which related languages are derived.
对同一文化内和跨文化的空间(人与人之间以及物理环境要素之间的)含义和排列的研究。
The study of the meaning and arrangement of space (between people and among elements of the physical setting) within and across cultures.
与语言产生和理解的心理过程有关,或与用于研究这些过程的主要行为方法有关。
Relating to the mental processes underlying language production and comprehension, or to the mainly behavioral methods used to examine these processes.
从肺部呼出的空气是声源。
Air moving out from the lungs as a source of sound.
在推链中,一个声音会进入另一个声音的发音空间。在拉链中,一个声音会通过从其他地方拉动另一个声音来填充发音空间。
In a push chain, a sound moves into the articulatory space of another sound. In a pull chain, a sound fills an articulatory space by pulling another sound from somewhere else.
用于陈述事物的数量或量的单词或短语。例如,nobody可用于陈述没有人拥有某种财产。
A word or phrase which serves to make a statement about quantities or amounts of things. For example, nobody can be used to state that no person has a certain property.
汉字的一部分,表示相应词素的语义类别。
Part of a Chinese character which indicates the semantic category of its corresponding morpheme.
来自特定社区在两个或多个不同时期的语言数据,通常用于研究语言变化。
Language data from a particular community at two or more different time periods, typically used to examine language change.
参见民间词源。
See folk etymology.
将一个指称物的象形文字扩展为在语音上表示该指称物的同音词(例如,使用象形文字表示太阳的圆圈也表示儿子)。
The extension of a pictogram for one referent to phonetically represent a homophone of that referent (e.g. the use of a circle pictographically representing the sun to also represent a son).
对学习者非目标型话语进行更目标型的重新表述。
A more targetlike reformulation of a learner’s non-targetlike utterance.
神经元表面接收特定类型神经递质的分子。
A molecule on the surface of a neuron that receives a specific type of neurotransmitter.
说话者考虑听话人的信息和社会需求的过程。
The process whereby a speaker considers the informational and social needs of the addressee of what he/she is saying.
参见捐赠者语言。
See donor language.
自然语法的特性使得语法过程可以重复应用,从而使得无限长的句子在理论上成为可能。
The property of natural grammar which allows grammatical processes to be applied repeatedly, making infinitely long sentences hypothetically possible.
参见元分析。
See metanalysis.
复制全部或部分词基以表示语法或含义的变化,例如他加禄语tawag “呼叫” → ta-tawag “将呼叫”,其中复制词基的第一个音节并放在词基前面以表示将来时态。
The copying of all or part of a base to signal a grammatical or meaning change, e.g. Tagalog tawag ‘call’ → ta-tawag ‘will call,’ in which the first syllable of the base is copied and prefixed to the base to indicate future tense.
单词或短语与其所描述的世界上的事物之间的关系;单词、短语或句子的外延含义。
The relationship between a word or phrase and the thing(s) in the world which it describes; the extensional meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence.
能够通过语言唤起的实体(人、地点或事物)。
An entity (person, place, or thing) that can be evoked by language.
一种使用语言的方式,其功能适应并反映其使用环境的不同方面(例如参与者、目标、环境)。
A way of using language that is functionally adapted to and reflects different facets its context of use (e.g. participants, goals, setting).
默认的语言模式。例如,在英语过去时构成中,常规模式(在动词后添加-ed后缀,如walking)适用于大多数英语动词,也适用于进入该语言的新动词(例如 googled)。
The default linguistic pattern. For example, in English past-tense formation, the regular pattern (adding the -ed suffix to the verb, as in walked) applies to most English verbs, as well as to new verbs entering the language (e.g. googled).
对某种行为的反应,增加了该行为发生的可能性。
A response to a behavior which increases the likelihood that the behavior will occur.
语言历史上发生变化的时间顺序。
The chronological order of changes which occurred in the history of a language.
当一个人注意到别人说出了有问题的话后,就会对其进行修改的过程;自我修复是针对自己的言语;他者修复是针对他人的言语。
The process whereby a person, having noticed that something problematic has been said, alters it; self-repair is directed to one’s own speech; other-repair is directed to another’s speech.
当语言数据能够代表儿童日常使用的语言或被调查的一般人群所使用的语言时,它就具有这种特征。
A characteristic of language data when they are representative of the language used by the child everyday or by the general population under investigation.
量词的一部分,表达与量词含义相关的事物集合。
The part of a quantifier expressing the set of things relevant to the meaning of the quantifier.
舌尖向后卷向腭齿槽区域时发出的音。
Sound made with the tongue tip curled back toward the palato-alveolar region.
系统地发出r作为元音或在元音后发出ø 的声音,如 [fi Ә ] 表示恐惧,[w œ k] 表示工作,或 [br ʌ θ ] 表示兄弟。
The systematic production of r as a vowel or ø after vowels, as in [fiӘ] for fear, [wœk] for work, or [brʌθ] for brother.
词汇词素在应用任何形态操作之前最基本的形式,例如形容词词素hydrate是复合词dehydratedifier的词根。在意大利语中,黏着形式lavor -“工作”是动词词根,其所有屈折形式均由词缀派生而来,而在阿拉伯语中,三辅音序列drs “学习”是黏着动词词根,其所有相关形式均由词缀和元音插入派生而来。
The most basic form of a lexical morpheme before any morphological operation has applied to it, e.g. the adjective lexeme humid is the root of the complex word dehumidifier. In Italian, the bound form lavor- ‘work’ is the verb root from which all its inflected forms are derived by affixation, and in Arabic the triconsonantal sequence d-r-s ‘study’ is the bound verb root from which all its related forms are derived by affixation and vowel infixation.
拉科夫 (Lakoff) 的术语用来描述说话者在尊重他人互动需求的同时选择表达意义的方式所遵循的原则。
Lakoff’s term to describe the principles underlying speaker’s choices of ways to express meaning while honoring others’ interactional needs.
该假设认为,我们的想法受到我们所说的语言的强烈影响。
The hypothesis that what we think is strongly affected by the language we speak.
支持性互动,通常是专家(比如老师或更有经验的同学)和学习者之间,或者看护者和孩子之间,允许学习者或孩子首先与他人合作练习技能。
Supportive interaction, typically between an expert (such as a teacher or a more experienced peer) and a learner, or between caregivers and children, which allows a learner or child to first practice skills in collaboration with another.
某些属性的有序值集,对于形容词的语义很重要。
An ordered set of values for some property, important for the semantics of adjectives.
关于体验(例如事件、人物、环境)的一组结构化期望。
A set of structured expectations about an experience (e.g. events, people, setting).
句子中单词或短语对其产生语义影响的部分。也更具体地用于指与量词结合描述事物数量或数量的句子部分。
The part of a sentence over which a word or phrase has a semantic effect. Also used more specifically to refer to the part of a sentence which, in combination with a quantifier, describes a quantity or amount of things.
当一个句子包含两个具有范围的短语(例如量词)时,可能会出现这种类型的歧义。
The type of ambiguity which can arise when a sentence contains two phrases which have scope, such as quantifiers.
通过某些口语单位(音素、音节或词素)的直接表达来间接表达某个对象或想法。
Indirect representation of an object or idea, through the direct representation of some unit of spoken language (phoneme, syllable, or morpheme).
在社区广泛使用该语言的环境中学习非母语(例如在美国学习英语)。
Learning a non-native language in a context where the language is widely spoken by the community (e.g. learning English in the US).
一种主要影响颞叶的神经退行性疾病,导致词汇和语义能力逐渐丧失。
A neurodegenerative disease that mainly affects the temporal lobes, and results in a progressive loss of lexical and semantic abilities.
研究字面意义的语言学领域;研究语言系统内确定的意义方面。
The field of linguistics which studies literal meaning; the study of those aspects of meaning which are determined within the linguistic system.
语言习得最有可能发生的时间范围(即青春期之前),以便达到与母语人士相当的掌握水平。
The time frame in which language acquisition should most likely occur (i.e. before puberty) in order for native-like levels of mastery to be reached.
依赖于独立的生物、认知或计算基础。
Relying on independent biological, cognitive, or computational substrates.
该建议认为双语儿童从语言习得的最早阶段就开始学习两种语法和词汇系统。
The proposal that bilingual children begin with two grammar and lexical systems from the earliest stages of language acquisition.
基于与其他语言种类的实质性结构差异而确定语言而非方言的地位的标准。
A criterion for status as a language rather than a dialect based on substantial structural differences from other linguistic varieties.
一种心理处理类型,其中各个子过程依次进行(一个接一个),并且彼此基本独立。
A type of mental processing in which individual subprocesses act in succession (one after the other), and are substantially independent of one another.
一类嘈杂、刺耳的声音,在英语中包括以下声音:/s、z、 ∫、ӡ、t、∫、d ӡ /。
a class of noisy, strident sounds which in English consist of the following: /s, z, ∫, ӡ, t, ∫, dӡ/.
一种教授第二语言的方法,侧重于通过解决问题来学习语言;教师只在必要时讲话,使用彩色木棒等道具来刺激学生使用和分析目标语言。
An approach to teaching second languages which focused on learning language through problem-solving; teachers spoke only when necessary, using props like colored wooden rods to stimulate student use and analysis of the target language.
带有非中性内涵且通常被认为是短暂的词汇。
Lexical items that carry non-neutral connotations and are typically considered to be short-lived.
以某种方式相互作用的个体的网络;人们频繁相互作用的网络可能具有密集和/或多重的特征。
A network of individuals who interact in some way; networks in which people interact frequently may be characterized as dense and/or multiplex.
非正式访谈旨在近似自然对话并产生大量自然语音数据,然后可以对其进行分析以揭示变化的规律。
An informal interview designed to approximate a natural conversation and to yield a large amount of naturalistic speech data which can then be analyzed to reveal regular patterns of variation.
由于声道中的空气共振而不是由于气流阻碍而发出的语音:元音、滑音、鼻音和一些液音。
A speech sound that is made audible by resonance of air in the vocal tract, rather than by obstruction of airflow: vowels, glides, nasals, and some liquids.
同一语言群体的成员发出特定声音的方式发生改变,这反过来可能导致该语言音系(该语言及其组织所使用的声音集)发生改变。
A change in the way members of a speech community pronounce particular sounds, which in turn may result in changes to the phonology of the language (the set of sounds used by the language and its organization).
将语音视为声源(喉部)和声音过滤器(声道共振)的组合。
Conception of speech sounds as a combination of a sound source (the larynx) and a sound filter (the resonances of the vocal tract).
定位大脑活动的准确度(例如研究方法)。
The degree of accuracy (e.g. of a research method) in localizing activity within the brain.
针对特定任务或认知功能的实时大脑活动模式。心理处理过程中大脑活动随时间变化的视觉表现。
The pattern of realtime brain activation for a given task or cognitive function. The visual representation of brain activity through time during mental processing.
说话者想要通过其语言传达什么。
What a speaker intends to communicate though his or her language.
某种功能特定于特定物种的程度(例如人类的语言)。
The degree to which a function is specific to a particular species (e.g. language in humans).
一种与句法和其他语言障碍以及一系列运动和其他非语言缺陷相关的发育性语言障碍。
A developmental language disorder associated with syntactic and other language impairments, as well as a range of motor and other nonlanguage deficits.
短语结构的一部分,比中心词高两级,从补语向相反方向分支。例如,句子的主语位于屈折短语的说明符位置。
A part of phrasal structure, two levels above the head and branching in the opposite direction from the complement. For example, subjects of sentences are located in the specifier position of Inflection Phrases.
一个人使用语言执行的动作。可以用名词来标记该动作。说话者想要传达该动作,而接收者也认识到了这一意图。例如:问候、请求、警告。
An action performed by one person using language. It can be labeled by a noun that names the act. The speaker intends to communicate the act and that intention is recognized by the recipient. Examples: greeting, request, warning.
两人或多人之间的互动,其中发生不止一种言语行为。例如:问候、请求和顺从。
An interaction between two or more people in which more than one speech act occurs. Examples: greetings, request and compliance.
使用声音信息识别消息中的语音的过程。
The process of using acoustic information to recognize speech sounds in a message.
将语音信号自动转录为自然语言文本。
The automatic transcription of a speech signal into natural language text.
有多个演讲活动的社交场合。在这种场合中,演讲有助于发生一些事情,但不一定就是全部。例如:教室、聚会。
A social occasion with more than one speech event. During the occasion, speech contributes to what happens, but it is not necessarily all that happens. Examples: a classroom, a party.
将自然语言文本自动转换为语音信号。
The automatic transformation of a natural language text into a speech signal.
单个音素随着时间的推移分解成两个或多个音素。
The breaking up over time of a single phoneme into two or more phonemes.
当第二语言学习暂时或永久地陷入停滞状态时。
When learning of the second language temporarily or permanently plateaus.
一个自治领土,其全部领土被视为处于同一政治权力的控制之下。
An autonomous territory all of which is considered to be under the control of the same political authority.
一种计算方法,其中语言学家训练计算机从带注释的语料库中的语言分析示例中发现句法规则,并使用不同结构出现的概率来解析新的输入。
A computational approach in which linguists train a computer to discover syntactic rules from examples of linguistic analyses in an annotated corpus, and use the probabilities of occurrence of different structures to parse new input.
一种作为进一步变格基础的形式。在意大利语中,粘着形式 lavor -“工作”既是词根,也是现在时形式lavorano “他们工作”的词干; lavorav -形式是不完美形式lavoravano “他们正在工作/过去工作”的词干(但不是词根)。
A form which serves as the base for further inflection. In Italian, the bound form lavor-‘work’ is both the root and the stem from which the present-tense form lavorano ‘they work’ is derived; the form lavorav- is the stem (but not the root) from which the imperfective form lavoravano ‘they were working/used to work’ is derived.
自动从单词中去除形态变化以获得其规范形式。
Automatically stripping off morphological inflections from a word to arrive at a normalized form of it.
一种发音方式,其中来自肺部的气流因声道的关闭而中断(在某个发音点)。
A manner of articulation in which the flow of air from the lungs is interrupted by the closing of the vocal tract (at some point of articulation).
自然语言生成的一个步骤,系统从数据集中选择称为“消息单元”的抽象信息块,并决定输出文本的话语模型。
A step in natural language generation where the system selects abstract chunks of information called “message units” from a data set and decides on the discourse model of the output text.
音节之间的突出关系。某些音节可能比周围的音节更长、更响、音调更高、发音更清晰。
A prominence relation between syllables. Certain syllables may be longer, louder, higher-pitched, and more clearly articulated than those around them.
从各个部分构建复杂语言结构的过程(例如,从单词构建短语,或从walk和 - ed构建过去时形式walk)。
The process of constructing a complex linguistic structure from its parts (e.g. constructing a phrase from its words, or the past-tense form walked from walk and -ed).
位于皮质下方的解剖结构(例如基底神经节)。
Anatomical structures situated beneath the cortex (e.g. the basal ganglia).
跟在其所绑定词根后面的词缀,例如单词happiness中的ness。
An affix that follows the base to which it is bound, e.g. -ness in the word happiness.
位于大脑表面脑回或脑叶之间的谷地。
A valley lying between gyri or lobes on the surface of the brain.
在多语言社会中,文化或政治上占主导地位的语言是上层语言,而地位较低的语言则是底层语言。
In a multilingual community, a culturally or politically dominant language is a superstratum language, while those of lesser status are the substratum languages.
用一个词干部分或全部替换另一个词干,以表示语法对比,例如go/went(过去时形式的全部补充)和bring/brought(部分补充)。
The partial or total substitution of one lexical stem for another to indicate a grammatical contrast, e.g. go/went (total suppletion in the past-tense form) and bring/brought (partial suppletion).
影响超过单个片段的声音延伸的语音方面:长度、音调、语调、音节结构和重音。
Aspects of speech that influence stretches of sound longer than a single segment: length, tone, intonation, syllable structure, and stress.
代表一种语言的音节的书面符号的清单。
The inventory of written symbols representing the syllables of a language.
两个神经元之间的微小空间,它们通过神经递质进行交流。
The tiny space between two neurons, across which they communicate via neurotransmitters.
具有共同含义的词彼此之间是同义词。绝对同义词在所有使用环境中具有相同的含义。部分同义词仅在某些使用环境中具有相同的含义。
Words that have shared meaning are synonyms of each other. Absolute synonyms have identical meanings in all contexts of use. Partial synonyms have identical meanings in only some contexts of use.
单词在句子中出现的位置;有时称为“词性”。
Where a word can appear in a sentence; sometimes referred to as “part of speech.”
一种以按层次组织的图表形式表示句子结构的方法,由短语结构规则生成。
A way to represent the structure of a sentence in a hierarchically organized diagram, generated by phrase structure rules.
自然语言生成的一个步骤,系统根据策略生成器指定的话语模型中的抽象消息单元生成句子。
A step in natural language generation where the system generates sentences from the abstract message units in the discourse model specified by the strategic generator.
使用交流活动,参与者必须交换或寻求信息来实现(通常是非语言的)目标。
Using communicative activities in which participants must exchange or seek information to accomplish a (generally nonlinguistic) goal.
在儿童语言发展的早期阶段,常见的是缺乏功能词的言语。
Speech in which function words are absent, common in the early stages of child language development.
确定给定神经认知过程的时间过程的准确度(例如研究方法)。
The degree of accuracy (e.g. of a research method) in determining the time course of a given neurocognitive process.
一种语法类别,将事件或状态与某个时间点(通常是说话的时刻)联系起来。
A grammatical category that situates an event or state in relation to a reference point in time, typically the moment of speaking.
发声时舌根僵硬。紧元音比松元音发音稍高且稍长。
Produced with stiffening of the tongue root. Tense vowels are slightly higher and longer than their lax counterparts.
单词意义的一部分,表示某个个体在该单词所描述的动作中所扮演的角色。例如施事者、受事者和主语。
A part of a word’s meaning which indicates the role that some individual plays in the action which that word describes. Examples are agent, patient, and theme.
一组词,构成一个可感知的单位。通常,它有一个主要重音、完整的语调轮廓、一致的韵律和/或以停顿结尾。
A cluster of words that form a perceptible unit. Typically it has one main stress, a complete intonation contour, a consistent prosody and/or ends with a pause.
一种语言(例如某人的第一语言)的知识对另一种语言(例如某人的第二语言)的发展、产生或理解的影响。
The knowledge of one language (e.g. one’s first language) impacting on the development, production, or comprehension of another (e.g. one’s second language).
方言区域边界上的区域,不同地区的语言特征可能共存,或可能存在中间形式。
Areas at the borders between dialect regions in which language features from the different regions may coexist or intermediate forms may be found.
事物必须以何种方式才能使句子为真。真值条件通常根据可能世界来理解。
The way that things would have to be in order to make a sentence true. Truth conditions are often understood in terms of possible worlds.
已被分析成解析树的语言句子集。
A corpus of sentences in a language that has been analyzed into parse trees.
当前未轮到发言的人所使用的 非语言和语言手段(见反向信道);这些手段允许当前发言者继续发言,或者如果当前发言者选择不继续发言,则另一个人可以开始发言。
Nonverbal and verbal devices (see back channels) produced by someone not currently holding a turn at talk; these devices allow current speaker to continue, or if current speaker opts not to, the other may begin a turn.
当前轮次中的一个位置,通常通过语调、停顿、韵律、含义或形式来表明,当前讲话者可以将轮次让给下一个讲话者。
A location in a current turn, often indicated by intonation, pause, prosody, meaning or form at which a current speaker may yield a turn to a next speaker.
自然语言的形态表示,具有声明性,可用于分析和生成。它使用有限状态转换器实现。
A morphological representation for natural language that is declarative and can be used for both analysis and generation. It is implemented with finite-state transducers.
语言发展阶段的特征是使用不超过两个单词的短语;大约两岁。
The stage of language development characterized by use of phrases which are not more than two words; at approximately two years of age.
将一个元音同化为下一个音节中的元音的过程或结果。
The process or the result of assimilating a vowel to one in the following syllable.
儿童使用一个词语来涵盖的指称比成人要少;例如,只使用狗这个词来指家犬,而不指其他犬科动物。
The child’s use of a word to cover less referents than would an adult; for example, only using the word dog to refer to the family dog but to no other canines.
词素在心理词汇中存储的基本形式。
The basic form of a morpheme as it is stored in the mental lexicon.
语言X的不合语法的句子是X的使用者不认为是X的可接受的句子。
An ungrammatical sentence of a language X is a sentence that speakers of X do not consider to be an acceptable sentence of X.
语法中语言信息以约束的形式表达,这些约束涉及语言特征表示的匹配。这种表示的匹配称为统一。与乔姆斯基的语法方法相反,基于统一的语法是声明性的,可用于理解和生成。
Grammars where linguistic information is expressed in the form of constraints involving matching of linguistic feature representations. The matching of such representations is called unification. In contrast to Chomskyan approaches to grammar, unification-based grammars are declarative, and can be used in both understanding and generation.
该观点认为,双语儿童一开始只掌握一种语法和词汇系统,而当他们学会区分两种语言时,这种语法和词汇系统就会逐渐分化。
The proposal that bilingual children begin with just one grammar and lexical system that later become differentiated as they learn to distinguish between the two languages.
决定所有语言自然语法属性的一组原则,人类儿童似乎生来就具有这些原则,并且被认为可以指导儿童习得母语。与语言器官的初始状态相同,只是抽象原则比生物学更受重视。
The set of principles that determine the properties of the natural grammars of all languages, with which human children appear to be born and which is thought to guide children’s acquisition of their native languages. The same as language organ in its initial state, except abstract principles are emphasized more than biology.
跨语言比较常见,或者相对容易听到或说出来。
Relatively common crosslinguistically, or relatively easier to hear or to say.
非生产性词缀,如 -ity和-ation ,通常不能用来创建新形式。例如,一般不能将此类词缀添加到自造词或借用词中。
Unproductive affixes, such as -ity and -ation, cannot usually be used to create new forms. For example, one cannot generally add such affixes to made-up or borrowed words.
具有一般含义的属性,在特定的使用环境中会变得更加具体。
The property of having a general meaning which is made more specific in a particular context of use.
调节口腔后部开口、连接口腔和鼻子的肌肉瓣。也称为软腭。
A muscular flap that regulates the opening in the back of the mouth that connects the mouth and nose. Also called the soft palate.
参见非标准品种。
See nonstandard variety.
在第二年末,孩子的产出性词汇量迅速发展。
At the end of the second year, the rapid development of the child’s productive vocabulary.
用于产生语音的肺、气管、喉、口和鼻的结构。
The structures of the lungs, trachea, larynx, mouth, and nose used to create speech sounds.
喉部内的组织瓣,当空气经过时可能会振动,从而产生声音。
Flaps of tissue inside the larynx which may vibrate as air passes over them, producing voicing.
一种同化,其中某一特定领域(通常是单词)中的所有元音必须在某些音系特征上保持一致,如圆润度或回音度。
A type of assimilation, in which all vowels in a certain domain, usually the word, must agree in some phonological feature, such as roundness or backness.
声波压力变化图,其中 x 轴表示时间,y 轴表示振幅。
A graph of pressure variations in a sound wave, where the x-axis indicates time and the y-axis indicates amplitude.
典型的语言区域,通常被认为对应于颞上回的后部。该区域以德国科学家卡尔·韦尼克 (Carl Wernicke) 的名字命名,他首次提出该区域与语言有关。
A classical language area generally taken to correspond to the posterior portion of the superior temporal gyrus. The area is named for the German scientist Carl Wernicke, who first suggested its involvement in language.
以具有who、what、where、why和how之类含义的“词”为首的 wh 短语从其原始位置移动到补语短语的指定位置的过程。与所有移动一样,它受到通用语法的严格限制。并非所有语言都有 wh 移动。
The process by which wh-phrases, headed by “words” with meanings like who, what, where, why, and how are moved from their original position to the specifier position of Complementizer Phrases. Like all movements it is tightly restricted by Universal Grammar. Not all languages have wh-movement.
不能用“是”或“否”来回答的问题通常包含 wh-word。
A question that cannot be answered by yes or no often contains a wh-word.
以wh开头的单词- 用于疑问句,例如what、when、where、who、why。
Word that starts with wh- that is found in questions, e.g. what, when, where, who, why.
一种遗传性发育障碍,以面部畸形和某些认知障碍为特征。有人认为,威廉姆斯综合征患者可能不影响语言能力(尤其是语法方面)。
A hereditary developmental disorder marked by a characteristic facial deformity as well as certain cognitive impairments. It has been argued that language – in particular, aspects of grammar – may be spared in Williams syndrome.
作为语言中最小的语法独立单位的抽象符号。
An abstract sign that is the smallest grammatically independent unit of language.
将输入句子中的每个单词映射到其最可能的含义(或“意义”)的过程。
The process of mapping each word in an input sentence to its most likely meaning (or “sense”).